Very interesting. Never worry about what content to make because the stuff is interesting to us living in other countries. On a side note, I'm glad you kept your hair long, It looks great. And on the second note, how's your mom doing with her treatment?
You have convection radiators they work best if air comes in at the bottom and goes out of the top. If you extend the shelf above the radiator and the curtains do not come below the shelf the convection will then come into the room if you have long curtains that cover the radiators, you can’t get convection. The other thing you can do to improve the radiator is behind them back them with insulated foil. This also increases their efficiency. The other thing that can stop radiators working properly is air building up inside the radiator can happen. You should have a bleed tap or key that you can use to get the air out of the radiator so it works efficiently. Hope this helps. Best wishes
That insulated foil sounded interesting, so I looked it up to see what it looks like. It's incredible how many sites it's on (worldwide!).. People seen to like it b'cas it provides insulation, no toxins, etc.. Good info Alan! 😊
Any chance I can get you to walk us around St. Petersburg on the longest day of this year, Thursday, 20 June? I'd love to see what it's like for folks to be out in the midnight sun!
I think your heating pipes are under pressure. There must be a shut off valve in the line or at each radiator, otherwise if you open the pipe connection you will have water mess. Find the shut offs first before trying to remove them. You might be better off just repairing/painting the wall without disturbing the radiators. Let us know what you end up doing. Take Care
Just put a paint drop cloth … No need to dismantle the heaters … Just paint the wall the close matching paint … Should be easy and on the cheap side to do .
Hi Ksenia good to see you,your new radiators are double ones and should be much more efficient than your old ones so hopefully you will be warmer this winter.
Greetings Ksenija, here in Croatia, older buildings are massively renovated, insulation is installed and windows and doors are replaced (part of the funds are financed from EU funds). I know from experience that it is good to place aluminum foil behind the radiator, if it is not available in your market, you can place a thicker foil on cardboard and place it behind the radiator. In this way, the heat will go towards the room and will not heat the wall unnecessarily. Also, your curtains must be short, so they don't cover the radiator and retain heat. I wish you all the best!!!
I own a condo which is similar to your apartment. We are responsible for all heating and air conditioning as well as hot water heater. We are responsible from the walls in. So if I wanted to add insulation I could. The condo association, which we pay into monthly, takes care of the outside of the building and common areas. I live in Delaware USA
So good to see you again! Those renovations look similar to repairs done in condominium apartments here in the US. And we have the same problems too, such as not repairing the walls & having exposed pipework too. Best wishes!
Great to see you back. Nice looking radiators, pity you need to redecorate the walls! Don't paint the radiators themselves unless they are off for a long time or they will become sticky. Be interesting if you are hotter in the winter. Crazy seeing that pipe up the wall! Normally that would be hidden behind a wall or enclosed so to be hidden. Stay warm!
You should feel really warm with new radiators. I'm a home owner and went from an old heating system that took ages to warm up the radiators, to a new combi boiler system and the difference is amazing. Decorating goes hand in hand with home improvements, nothing stays the same shape and size. Total pain, but there it is. As far as the wall pipe goes, I'm in the UK and I'd say that's a typical council job!
It's so good to see you looking and sounding well. This video was fascinating to me. I would consider, depending on the cost, hanging tapestries or rugs on the walls. It's an old custom that was used for centuries to help insulate rooms. Take care and have a nice visit with your brother.
Thank you for sharing Ksenyia! Stay safe! Much respect and peace from the Republic of Ireland.....By the way, i love your channel..Always interesting for me! 👍🇮🇪🍻
Hi Ksenia! Thank you so much for explaining this to us. I kind of like the idea of owning an apartment. I think it would make the entire complex much better because they would own their own apartments and take care of them. It is always so good to see you. 🥰
It looks like they replaced the pipes with some type of plastic pipes and that was the only way to reinforce them to the wall. They also probably will not heat the boiler to as high temps as before. Those new pipes are cheaper to make and should not corrode like the iron pipes. Maybe they need the old radiators for melting down to make new military equipment?
In winter it might be interesting to go over the layers of clothes used and as its so cold how people manage when in a shopping mall, like do you carry heavy clothes around. A lot of 1960s apartments here get torn down. Its easier than fixing them up. Better building methods now. Some were a lot worse than soviet era buildings. Like a leak in the top flat went through all ceilings.
I have an electric radiator in my bathroom. I also used to have an electric blanket on my bed. Those are nice to have, if you can get them. In the ice storm of '09, I was without electricity for 15 days and nights in January/February. I wore layers. I put on insulated/thermal underwear, thin clothing, then medium thickness clothing, then thicker, warm clothing, and then winter coats. (Could also wear a snowsuit if you have one.) I went to bed when the sun went down, and slept under six blankets. I pulled the blankets up over my head to keep my face warm. I also wore knitted caps/hats, and two to three pairs of socks on my feet. I put two of my pillows on each side of me, so that when I rolled over, they protected me from the cold air seeping in when the blankets shifted. I later learned that it's a good idea to stock up on old newspapers and cardboard in case you need them, as they help keep you warm. You can shove newspaper between the layers of your clothes. You can lay newspapers and cardboard between your blankets. Or make a shelter on your bed with cardboard, like a tent, and sleep inside. (It's the reason a lot of homeless people sleep in cardboard boxes.) There are tents you can buy that go on top of the bed. You could also cover your windows with cardboard at night, when the sun goes down, to help keep out the cold air. Maybe even stack cardboard up against the outside walls to help hold in the heat. (Take it all down when you call to have your walls inspected.) I have a gas stove, so I was able to use my stovetop to help give off a little heat. I learned that a double boiler worked great as a replacement for my microwave. I heated up the water in the bottom pot, and wrapped up my cheeseburger in aluminum foil, and set it in the top pan, and covered with a lid. I flipped the burger over every so often. The burger was so hot it had to cool some before I could eat it. I figured that if my microwave ever quits working, I can use the double boiler until I can get a new microwave.
Is there some kind on decor you could buy, or make, to hide the pipes behind? Wrap a string of Christmas lights around them for soft lighting at night.
@@joline2730 - Only two of the nights dipped down into the teens, or lower. Most of the nights stayed just above freezing. My mom had my brother-in-law bring me her kerosene heaters for those two nights. I stayed up and read books all night when I had the heat. I read a total of 17 books in those 15 days & nights. I would sit in front of a south facing window and soak in the warmth of the sun. The second book in the Harper Connelly Series by Charlaine Harris, An Ice Cold Grave, had the two main characters go without electricity for a few days. I knew exactly how they felt. 🤣😆😂 I stayed home, instead of going to my mom’s, because I had cats. I didn’t want to pack them & all their stuff to my mom’s house. Plus, my niece, her husband & kids were there. The cats would have hated it, so I chose to stay with the cats. I did go to mom’s once a week to shower & be warm for a few hours. Still, there’s no place like home, even if there’s no heat. 🤣😂
Apartment buildings in North America are old and many need repairs or just throw out old and put in new It is good that they are taking care of apartments in Russia like that.
You could hang ceiling to floor insulated curtains on the walls. It would help keep the heat in. And one thing that might help is to use those rubber floor tiles, they fit together like a puzzle, sometimes used in play rooms, but they come in different colors. Tent campers use them under an air mattress to keep the cold air from coming up through the mattress. And wall to wall carpets over those.
Hi Ksenia, so nice to see you again! Usually, where you own part of the building you live in (your flat or apartment), it's called a Sectional Title Deed (in other words you own your portion of the building). You can, because you own your portion of the building, normally do anything you want inside your four walls as long it's not going to cause structural damage (like moving a load bearing wall). You must just ensure that your insulation is on the INSIDE of your apartment and not on the outside. The outside of the building must look the same everywhere and any changes has to come with the consent of the Body Corporate (or Buiding Adminstrators as you call them). The costs for outside and structural changes like te Radiators) normally comes out of the Levy Fee (or building administration fee). So if you want to put insulation on the INSIDE of your apartment and it's not going to cause structural damage, you can do that. I mean,you can paint your walls, laminate or carpet your floors, change your kitchen and bathroom (all of this is part of your Sectional Title Deed Ownership), so why shouldn't you be able to insulate your wall on the INSIDE of your Apartment? I would suggest that you talk to a person legally qualified to deal with Sectional or Portional, or Condo (whatever you call it) and just make sure of your rights as the owner of your Apartment. 🇿🇦
Oh dear sweetheart beautiful Ksenia, we also use similar radiators, they are just fine. They react faster (warm faster and cool faster) than heavy weight older radiators. Also consider placing some thermal reflectors between the walls and radiators to increase their radiation efficiencies. Sure your brother will help in repairs. Beware, proper thermal insulation is more important and effecive for heating than just heating...
You have subscribers who love you and will even listen to you talk about utility bills🥰! It is always a pleasure to see you. I hope you get this challenge resolved to your satisfaction. Please when you feel comfortable doing so, give us an update on your mother and your family.❤
Hi again Ksenia nice to see that you are back i always enjoy your videos. I live in sweden and here that old type of radiators are really retro fashion so ppl would go nuts if they took them down and put up the new "boring" ones. Take care, i hope you do good there, ill look forward to more videos.
Something you could do for your cold wall would be to hang thick drapes on the entire wall. It’s non permanent and easy to remove. A cooking video with a traditional recipe would be great!
If the radiators don’t heat up enough even at maximum setting, then I think the building management has made it like that so tenants do use lots of gas.
you could insulate the interior wall with additional panels and insulation material. It would make the room smaller but would give a second thermal layer.
Ah, your versatile brother will handle the repairs! It's good to have a good handyman in the family. I would suggest to ask him to look into adding insulation on the inside of your walls, some paneling should be relatively easy to install and would make a big difference, also covering those ugly pipes. It is true that they need to do all the façade at once to avoid thermal leakage, but internal insulation doesn't affect the rest of the building, so you should be able to do as you please, in your own home. At a minimum you should put reflective material behind the radiators, so that the heat is directed towards the interior of the apartment, and you aren't heating the courtyard. There's different types of panels, but I'm sure your brother will know where to find the right stuff. Be well!
Your brother is probably going to do this but just in case I'll mention it. While the radiators are removed take the wall behind them apart and insulate the wall then plaster or dry wall over that. Good video. Its always good to hear from you. Best wishes from Canada.
Detached homeowner here, so I can't say what apartment owners do, but we replaced our furnace/air conditioner in 2020 and it cost us roughly 9k USD out of pocket. House is around 2400 square feet.
Same, in Canada a furnace replacement was about 6k CND not including air con which would probably be 3-4 as well. I recently bought a new build and hopefully my furnace lasts 20 years haha
There are many UK citizens living in private or local government landlord homes, who have a lot of damp, to the point their children end up in hospital etc, yet they just give excuses all the time. For you to have upgraded heating system is very good, it shows that money paid to the government is being put back into the community. In UK we see very little improvements.
The pipes in my apartment are not attached to the wall, but iron. The biggest problem I see is that you only have one pipe. I have two one for heat coming up, the other for the cold going down. If the exit from the radiator goes into the same pipe the next on the pipe gets colder water. So if you are last on the pipe you don't get much heat.
Service charge system is very similar in Estonia. We have a service body for each block of approximately 100 apartments. My block was built in 1972.
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:) Hello Ksenia, it was good to see you again in a new video! Can I share my personal experience with you about something really great about heating? I have heard about this stuff from the wall painter that redecorated our apartment a year ago. We had - still have - old but good working iron radiators. The walls behind them were very ugly as compared to the lovely new painting and dismantling them would have been too difficult, so the painter master suggested to put this special thing on the walls behind each radiator. I do not know its English name but I will send you a link where you can see it - it is in Hungarian but you will see the photo. Here in Hungary, we can buy this stuff in rolls - and he easily glued them on the walls behind the radiators with a special glue. This layer reflects back the heat from the radiators towards the rooms - and our apartment is super warm in winter, though the building itself was built in the 1970s and the outside has never been updated. It made his work a lot easier because he did not have to dismantle the radiators, he did not have to repair the walls - he covered it with this stuff, it is barely visible and its effect is super great, especially under the windows. Even right under the windows, the air is very pleasantly warm. This is it: hazravalo.hu/HUFOL_1-5-6 and another link: ledsziget.hu/Hotukros-Polifoam-5mm?.hu&
Good to see you! Glad you got an upgrade on your heating. I hope Dima can help to repair the sections they left uncovered. It's interesting that taxes are collected for this purpose across the city. Here, everyone pays their own. Love this kind of topic. Looking forward to a next video when you have time! From Kansas USA 🇺🇸 🥰🌻
Except water. We pay our own AND pay taxes for the part that's not on our property. We pay for all of it basically but the part not on our property is taxes/mandatory crowdfunding.
Maybe you could hang up a Gobelin as a decoration on the cold wall, it may insulate a bit. Insulation comes from air that doesn't move, however moist must be able to vapour. So I thought of something that i not water tight, but big enough for the whole wall.
Hello Ksenia!! Great to share the things of life 😊! Yes I agree with you it's very ugly, but I hope the radiators work better than they look. If it's any consolation, British radiators look like this, but of course better radiators are available! You can buy covers for the pipework which can be painted. They're not very expensive and look a tiny bit less ugly. 🤗. Dima might have seen these ❤️
Hello Ksenia! Glad you are fine! I think these radiators will work well, they also have temperature valves!. From what I understand you don't have a condominium central heating boiler, but everything is centralized in a municipal thermoelectric power plant. Here each condominium has its own condensing boiler for heating, or even independent heating for each apartment. I don't live in a condominium, but by law I must also have a condensing boiler with radiators and valves and this to pollute less. We are compelled by law (EU law) to have this kind of heating. Wish you that everything will work well. Thank you for these updates ❤
Intersting info... I bet it will work better than before... I have the same kind of heating in the USA..... It is is my opinion the best kind of heating..Others have what's called forced air that comies out of vents from the floor ... I don't like those the air gets too dry...
Thank you for explaining the common property. I was listening to someone one day and he said communal services. I had no idea what that meant. I don't know, even if I lived in an apartment building which I only did one time, I don't think they used the term communal services. And if that also means things like shoveling the snow in the apartment area or shoveling the snow in the actual city, I still wouldn't know what it meant. In fact can't you tell I don't know what it means. Nobody shovels our snow Oh wait a minute I live in Florida. Well nobody shoveled our snow when I lived in Massachusetts either and sometimes the neighbors got a big plow and I don't know maybe they owned it and they plowed our driveway which was very nice of them because our driveway was I think 75 ft long. The garage was actually behind the house. I'll have to ask someone if it was actually that long but yeah it was behind the house I think that maybe they built it originally to put horses in or something. I'm not really sure. The house was built in 1927 so it's remotely possible. Anyway now that I've finished my rice I think I can stay awake long enough to watch your video if I don't talk too much myself. I was going to eat some real food instead of just a cup of rice but I was afraid I would fall asleep before I got to watch this. So I thought I would start with the rice and then if I'm still actually hungry then I'll eat something else. Back to the radiators and the bill. It's quite colorful. Of course only on the front.
I am also one of those people who get really cold and I also get really hot and I have an air conditioner in my window instead of the central air conditioning in our house which actually died like 15 years ago or so. But even before that I had my air conditioner that I brought with me from Massachusetts and we put it in the window because it was still too hot in my room in the summer. And then of course when our air conditioner died somebody came and fixed it and they said well it will be okay now but you won't have any heat in the winter. But we did. For at least a few years and then the heat stopped working. And it's a good thing that it's Florida. A couple of years ago my brother went to Home Depot and he got me a little portable heater for my bedroom. So I have an air conditioner in my window and this one this year it's not good. I liked the one I had before. It was responsive. You turned it up it went up You turned it down it went down This one it takes forever and ever and by then your body's a different temperature anyway and you're younger than me so it's possible you are having that time when your body decides its own temperature. But my body still does that. I don't know why. So I've been waking up in the morning and I've either been really cold or I've been really hot and my sheets are damp and my clothes are damp and it really stinks. And we replaced the air conditioner with a different air conditioner but it wasn't any better and I just talked to my brother when we were changing the bedding tonight and he says he's having trouble with his air conditioner and his window also. So! There's something wrong with the air conditioners all of a sudden. Of course my roommate Dennis is perfectly fine with his air conditioner. I don't think he got a new one. And not only that but they used to last for a really really really really really really long time like the first one I had lasted for 12 years. But then they started putting styrofoam inside them and it would get moldy and so Dennis would come and take the air conditioner out and change it with a different one and then he would take the old one apart and he would clean it all up inside. And we would wait while he was taking weeks to repair air conditioners that shouldn't need repairing and cleaning them all up and then he would rotate them between our windows. Like you know "I get the next clean air conditioner! No it's my turn" But this air conditioner it looks a lot like the last one I had but I swear honestly it was running for hours and it was 75° in my room and I was too hot. And then I finally got it to go down and it was 72° and I was too cold. And ordinarily I like it to be 77 or 78°. Yes it's all Fahrenheit and this I'm just really frustrated right now because it was cold and I tried to fix it then now of course it's hot but it says that it's 72° and there's no way and the thermometer in my room says it's 74° and I'm sorry if it was really 74° I would be cold and I am not. Oh well so let me turn it down again or I would call it turn it up as in getting more air conditioning but everybody else here calls it turn it down. I hope that your brother can help you with your walls and your pipes or somebody can suggest something they probably already have. And by the way one year it was just so cold and everything was so expensive that we would have these ads on TV for this thing called a snuggie. And you put it on and it covered your whole body and it had a hood and it covered your feet and down your arms and I guess you could put it on top of your regular clothes I don't know. I was waiting for the one that you could plug in and it would be an electric snuggie. Unfortunately I can't remember whether that happened. It was cold last winter. Okay it was maybe 40° but remember we don't have heat. So the first day the house will stay warm and then after that it will start getting cold and we always have one day delay. Maybe it wasn't last year maybe it was the year before. But we come up with all these creative ideas on how to stay warm. And I'm sure that by now somebody has suggested various things. But yes I do know about being one of those cold people but also being one of those too hot people. I have a really small window where I'm actually comfortable. They say that's more common in women. But then again if I have like a piece of my hair comes off and it's lying over my arm I can feel it. Sometimes I can't even see it and I can still feel it and I have to go looking for where is that piece of hair I know it's there. I'm like that lady in the fairy tale about the princess and the pea. Anyway I hope it all works out and if it doesn't someone will come up with a good idea. And I still haven't come up with the name of the guy who comes and fixes stuff in your apartment and I should Google it but... It's really late. At least it would seem that the plastic pipes would be better than metal pipes because every time we have metal pipes they get corroded. Of course that's in my duck house. Now we have plastic pipes to hold my duck house together and hold the shelves on and hold the roof on and the whole thing is made out of PVC pipes and hardware cloth and random pieces of wood that were parts of gardens in the past. I don't think it's even really real wood. But I don't know what it's called. But at least I got to sell three ducks today. Of course it cost more to feed them when I had them then I got from selling them but that's okay. At least we now have fewer ducks.
Hi Ksenia ! I find that the radiators are OK and I can already tell you that they will be at the right temperature more quickly than with the old cast iron ones. BUT ! The problem that remains with you is the insulation of the walls and behind the radiators! If you don't insulate, you'll pay a lot for - poorly - heating! So, 1) behind the radiators, use a roll of 'special radiator' insulation: one side of this roll is a thin metal layer stuck to the insulation and is intended to return the radiant heat towards the inside of the room while the other side is insulating and prevents heat from escaping into the wall. You can glue or use thumbtacks to attach this insulation on the wall behind the radiators. 2) Insulation of the front wall: I don't understand why you ar not allowed* to insulate YOUR INTERIOR wall? In your place, I wouldn't say anything and I would do the work with 3 or 4 or 5 cm thick Styrofoam insulation panels: light, very easy to use, to cut, and ABOVE ALL it's going to be hot at your place! And FINALLY, your heating bill will significantly decrease! ... enough to save money for a trip abroad 😉 * we 'll come next year if it is a problem = NEVER !!!
I live in Canada and condo owners are responsible for all the maintenance in their building. Each building is registered as a corporation which is owned by the individuals who own their units. By law, each condominium corporation must maintain a reserve fund that is used for repairs and maintenance of the common areas and equipment. The owners are responsible for repairs inside their units. Every 3 or 5 years an engineering firm must do a study to determine what work needs to be done in the future. Based on that study, the corporation sets the fees that owners must pay each month in order to have sufficient funds to pay for those repairs and replacements. If the condominium corporation does not have sufficient funds, the management board can levy a special assessment which can be several thousands dollars depending on the cost of the repairs. All these costs fall on the shoulders of the owners of the building. It is not shared with any other building.
Yes, like condo associations in the US. External and shared things are maintained with the owners’ monthly dues (which can be big!) But our interior walls, fixtures, plumbing, etc are the responsibilities of the owners. What gets complicated is where the communal vs private lines are drawn. Like with pipes shared in the walls and frustratingly, our balconies.
So interesting!! 😮😃 I remember, when I just came to ❤Belarus❤ last Summer, and at the Hotel she told me that from the 10th until the 22nd of August (I think) there will not be hot water - I asked, do you mean in my room?? Or at the entire Hotel? And then, she told me "no, in the entire neighbourhood!" I was stunned!! 😃 As, in israel, suuch things are either at the specific apartment, or (at the most!) at the single building level, but the municipality has got nothing to do with it. The things that regard the common property are at the building level, and are cared for by _"Va'ad haBayith"_ (Hebrew: "The House' Committee"), which includes two or three of the (apartment owning) neighbours, who volunteered (usually after being coerced into it by all other neighbours...🙃) to deal witjh these things,, at least until they can shove that responsibility onto _another_ neighbour LOL And, of course, each of the neighbours must pay them a certain tax, in order to support the maintainance of the building (garden, elevator, roof, staircase-cleaning etc.), which of course means a large chunk of the _Va'ad's_ members responsibility (the one they despise most of all, of course) is to chase each of their neighbours, in demand for them to _finally_ pay up the money they still owe since last year's February, or something... 😂 I'd never actually thought it can be so different elsewhere. 🙂
You can put a reflektive foile behind the Radiator and put some small ventilators under it for more airflow. You can masking the hole pipe with Isolation Material for a good Look and moor effectivity. Your can buy a foile from tesa called tesa Mole for Your Windows. Installation is easy. You can save about 10 to 15% of Energy. And you can create Content for Your channal. You are a Candel glowing in the dark. 🤗
Hi Ksenia, in Canada we can purchase 'space heaters' or ceramic heaters with fans for rooms that are perpetually cold or seem to never get warm enough. I'm wondering if you could purchase something like that in Russia, it just plugs into the wall and you can put it on a timer. When our furnace was filled with ice in the winter we just heated our house with gas fireplace and space heater.
Hi Ksenia, It is very interesting to hear how things work for people in different parts of the world and I'm glad you thought to record a vlog about the changes to your heater in your apartment. I am living in a house in Melbourne Australia which we have just sold. In this house everything to do with heating and cooling is our own responsibility and we make our own choices based on research and what we can afford. We hire independent contractors/companies to provide the systems and to do the installation (electricians and plumbers). These companies do not always leave our home in a tidy state but most try to repair and clean up the area because they want us to give them a good review so that they can attract more customers. Shortly, we hope to buy an apartment. As with your apartment, ours will have areas that are common property and we will not be able to change or be responsible for the repair and maintenance of them. This property is maintained by a body corporate which is either a committee made up of owners who are willing to be involved in managing the common property including making repairs, insurances, paying bills for common services etc. Sometimes the apartment is managed by an independent company that is paid to do this work on behalf of the owners. The body corporate assigns each apartment a yearly amount, paid monthly according to the size of the apartments. This will vary from year to year according to the amenities in the building (elevators, swimming pools, gardens etc) and the needs anticipated for the next year. The fees can be as much as $7 - $10k. I really feel for you in this situation both because you are not able to make improvements to manage the heat in your apartment, and also because you have to work out ways to hid the ugly mess. I hope you find ways to fix these problems. Make sure you research how to remove the radiator first so that you don't end up with a mess. When you put it back together you may need to bleed the air out of the pipes. Good luck!
I live in the Canadian Province of Quebec and my house is heated by electric heaters. We can turn them on even in summer. Former homes that I used to live in had oil furnaces & natural gas furnaces.
I am sure it works the same there as it does in the US. They get a bid for the work and take the cheapest one. Then you get what they give you. At least the part that you have to repair is an easy fix and should not take your brother long to fix. Those radiators look nice but I guess we will see if it helps with your heating and the cost of heating your apartment. By the way, I thought all Russians were cold-blooded due to the location of your country. We are waiting for the update from the repair, thank you for the tour...
Install ceiling fans in all rooms to blow theat down towards the floor and buy a couple small ceramic heaters. If that doesn't fix your problem completely then you'll have to get you a man to snuggle up to.
If your installed heating is inadequate, perhaps you could buy an electric heater, say a fan heater, or two to boost the heating in your apartment. Just a suggestion. Of course, that would mean using more electricity and higher electric bills.
Probably because your apt is considered a condo and there is a lot of red tape on what you can or can't do. That's the way it is in Canada. My landlord controls my heating so I bought a ceramic space heater for extra heat!! Take care.:)
Your vertical pipes appear to be mounted to reduce noise from vibration. Box those in or put a cardboard tube around them. Take photos of everything you cover so that you will know what has to be removed if there is a problem.
Well, the pipes are warm too, so you will get less heat if you box them in. Start by painting them. No I don't think they would do it like that in their own house, if they were allowed to do it themselves.
@@StPetersburgme If your brother going to remove the radiators for decoration you would better to fit reflective insulation foils during the decoration. you dont have to remove rads. next winter again. Also, you can replace the kitchen radiator with a higher output one. The uninsulated external wall you mentioned can be insulated from internal side with a 50 or 100mm Celotex insulation boards.
@@StPetersburgme Hiya 🙋♀️ The parts of your building like the hallways, lifts and basement we call 'The Common Parts', here in the UK. The charges (in a flat or apartment like yours) we call 'Maintenance Charges' and we pay a yearly sum, they are all different depending on who owns the building (not Government owned) and they charge what they like - some are very expensive 😒😒 The comment about putting up a thick curtain along that cold wall is a good idea 👌 All the best to your mother - and brother 😃
Privet iz Finlyandiyi :) Those seem for pretty standard style radiators, 2 or 3 row ones, should be more efficient than the old ones, if they are not much smaller. Atleast at start they should be better since usually old ones might be really rusty from inside which decreases the efficiency. Interesting stuff :) In those pipes, looks pretty standard stuff too, but maybe they should have used white attachments for the pipes instead of chrome/iron style ones. I am pretty sure you can paint them up but maybe you will get used to them ☺️
yes , you can paint it, those are like that so they dont have to put inside the wall (less work, less time, less cost), those are also of plastique because it last longer, is less expensive ans easier to install.
I would shorten your curtains and maybe hang some wool on the walls in the wintertime. It seems that they should not have put your shelf above the heater.
Communal living like in a condo is not like a freestanding home. I have to let people into my condo a few times a year for mandatory services, sometimes updates to the infrastructure that aren’t to my liking or are crappy and fail. I do pay a lot to my condo association in monthly dues, and have not done the math whether that’s justified, but I can say that if I owned a solo home and there was a leak in the roof, I’d probably just live with rain buckets. So there’s plusses and minuses to both.
Is that external brickwork behind the heater? If so no wonder you are feeling the cold. In the 1960’s in Australia they did not insulate buildings, they do now and it definitely makes a difference. Temperatures where I live range between minus 2 to a max of 47.5 .
Can you buy a small heater to add to the warmth? In America they sell tiny heaters that plug into the wall and stays on the wall. I bought one for 20.00 and it heats a room quickly.
Okay so I'm stupid :-) I think the people who own apartments in the US have something called a condo fee for their condominium cuz that's what they call it and that would probably take care of all the things related to the common areas and the shoveling snow and the radiators in the hallways and the light fixtures and I don't know Maybe that guy what do they call him? Well they have a guy in apartment buildings that you can go to if you have something broken that's not major or if you lock yourself out or whatever and ordinarily when it's not 1:00 a.m. I can remember what he's called. But that doesn't cover things like shoveling the streets of the city. But it would cover like the sidewalks outside of a condominium building because apparently if you don't shovel the sidewalk in front of where you live then you can't get mail and if people slip and fall on the sidewalk then they can sue you. So everybody has to go out and shovel their thing unless somebody else is responsible or they want to pay somebody else to do it. My brother says also that they have long electric and hot water pipes over in Tampa that go between buildings and I've never seen that anywhere else in the US. Like every building has its own electric well it has a wire that comes in from the electric grid but it also has its own hot water inside the building... Somewhere. So that's different. Hopefully you will be warm this winter but how will I know if I don't shut up and stop commenting?
Hi Ksenia! Hopefully your new radiators are more energy efficient and your heating bill will be less. As for insulating the exterior walls, you would have to take down the dry wall and put insulation behind it then put up new dry wall and plaster and paint it. If your building management won't do it, maybe you could get a quote from a local carpenter to see if the cost is worth it to you.
Very interesting. Never worry about what content to make because the stuff is interesting to us living in other countries.
On a side note, I'm glad you kept your hair long, It looks great. And on the second note, how's your mom doing with her treatment?
Thank you for your good words!
my mom will have treatments once a month for the next 6 to 9 months. Now she seems fine.
@@StPetersburgme glad to hear it - I know we ALL wish her well ❤
You have convection radiators they work best if air comes in at the bottom and goes out of the top. If you extend the shelf above the radiator and the curtains do not come below the shelf the convection will then come into the room if you have long curtains that cover the radiators, you can’t get convection. The other thing you can do to improve the radiator is behind them back them with insulated foil. This also increases their efficiency. The other thing that can stop radiators working properly is air building up inside the radiator can happen. You should have a bleed tap or key that you can use to get the air out of the radiator so it works efficiently. Hope this helps. Best wishes
That insulated foil sounded interesting, so I looked it up to see what it looks like. It's incredible how many sites it's on (worldwide!).. People seen to like it b'cas it provides insulation, no toxins, etc.. Good info Alan! 😊
I noticed the was a key lying on one of the radiators. Most often needed when the heating comes back on.
I wonder if she can find insulated foil in St Petersburg
@@personincognito3989 if not, then just baking foil works just as well ... IF you can get it down behind the rads ‼️
Any chance I can get you to walk us around St. Petersburg on the longest day of this year, Thursday, 20 June?
I'd love to see what it's like for folks to be out in the midnight sun!
That does sound really interesting! 👍
I think your heating pipes are under pressure. There must be a shut off valve in the line or at each radiator, otherwise if you open the pipe connection you will have water mess. Find the shut offs first before trying to remove them.
You might be better off just repairing/painting the wall without disturbing the radiators.
Let us know what you end up doing.
Take Care
Yes we completely agree. It can be a big undertaking. Best not to work on pressurized systems without plumber training.
In my flat in the UK, we have radiators like your new ones. I find them to be really good.
Nice to see you, Ksenia! Yes, you can paint those hot water pipes. I have something similar. Just make sure you get heat-resistant paint.
And if possible, sand it (then clean it) a bit in order to help the paint stick better to the metal
Always good to hear from you, and besides the radiator issue, I am glad you are OK!
Nice to see you back & hope you and your family are doing well 💖
Just put a paint drop cloth … No need to dismantle the heaters … Just paint the wall the close matching paint …
Should be easy and on the cheap side to do .
Hi Ksenia good to see you,your new radiators are double ones and should be much more efficient than your old ones so hopefully you will be warmer this winter.
Greetings Ksenija, here in Croatia, older buildings are massively renovated, insulation is installed and windows and doors are replaced (part of the funds are financed from EU funds). I know from experience that it is good to place aluminum foil behind the radiator, if it is not available in your market, you can place a thicker foil on cardboard and place it behind the radiator. In this way, the heat will go towards the room and will not heat the wall unnecessarily. Also, your curtains must be short, so they don't cover the radiator and retain heat. I wish you all the best!!!
I own a condo which is similar to your apartment. We are responsible for all heating and air conditioning as well as hot water heater. We are responsible from the walls in. So if I wanted to add insulation I could. The condo association, which we pay into monthly, takes care of the outside of the building and common areas. I live in Delaware USA
Yes, it’s like a condo in the US in many ways.
Also in Canada! Though the STRATA can ask you for money above the monthly fee which can be quite high already(
So good to see you again! Those renovations look similar to repairs done in condominium apartments here in the US. And we have the same problems too, such as not repairing the walls & having exposed pipework too. Best wishes!
Good to see you. Hope radiators are good for your apartment. Stay safe and be careful!
Great to see you back. Nice looking radiators, pity you need to redecorate the walls! Don't paint the radiators themselves unless they are off for a long time or they will become sticky. Be interesting if you are hotter in the winter. Crazy seeing that pipe up the wall! Normally that would be hidden behind a wall or enclosed so to be hidden. Stay warm!
You should feel really warm with new radiators. I'm a home owner and went from an old heating system that took ages to warm up the radiators, to a new combi boiler system and the difference is amazing. Decorating goes hand in hand with home improvements, nothing stays the same shape and size. Total pain, but there it is. As far as the wall pipe goes, I'm in the UK and I'd say that's a typical council job!
It's so good to see you looking and sounding well. This video was fascinating to me. I would consider, depending on the cost, hanging tapestries or rugs on the walls. It's an old custom that was used for centuries to help insulate rooms. Take care and have a nice visit with your brother.
Thank you for sharing Ksenyia! Stay safe! Much respect and peace from the Republic of Ireland.....By the way, i love your channel..Always interesting for me! 👍🇮🇪🍻
It may be a cold winter there now. I suggest you get a couple of electric heating blankets just in case.
I wish the best for you. I hope this new unit is more efficient than your older one.😊❤
Hi Ksenia! Thank you so much for explaining this to us. I kind of like the idea of owning an apartment. I think it would make the entire complex much better because they would own their own apartments and take care of them. It is always so good to see you. 🥰
Good to see you
So nice to heard from you. If necessary can you used a additional electric space heater to supplement heat for your comfort
It looks like they replaced the pipes with some type of plastic pipes and that was the only way to reinforce them to the wall. They also probably will not heat the boiler to as high temps as before. Those new pipes are cheaper to make and should not corrode like the iron pipes. Maybe they need the old radiators for melting down to make new military equipment?
In winter it might be interesting to go over the layers of clothes used and as its so cold how people manage when in a shopping mall, like do you carry heavy clothes around.
A lot of 1960s apartments here get torn down. Its easier than fixing them up. Better building methods now. Some were a lot worse than soviet era buildings. Like a leak in the top flat went through all ceilings.
I have an electric radiator in my bathroom. I also used to have an electric blanket on my bed. Those are nice to have, if you can get them. In the ice storm of '09, I was without electricity for 15 days and nights in January/February. I wore layers. I put on insulated/thermal underwear, thin clothing, then medium thickness clothing, then thicker, warm clothing, and then winter coats. (Could also wear a snowsuit if you have one.) I went to bed when the sun went down, and slept under six blankets. I pulled the blankets up over my head to keep my face warm. I also wore knitted caps/hats, and two to three pairs of socks on my feet. I put two of my pillows on each side of me, so that when I rolled over, they protected me from the cold air seeping in when the blankets shifted.
I later learned that it's a good idea to stock up on old newspapers and cardboard in case you need them, as they help keep you warm. You can shove newspaper between the layers of your clothes. You can lay newspapers and cardboard between your blankets. Or make a shelter on your bed with cardboard, like a tent, and sleep inside. (It's the reason a lot of homeless people sleep in cardboard boxes.) There are tents you can buy that go on top of the bed. You could also cover your windows with cardboard at night, when the sun goes down, to help keep out the cold air. Maybe even stack cardboard up against the outside walls to help hold in the heat. (Take it all down when you call to have your walls inspected.)
I have a gas stove, so I was able to use my stovetop to help give off a little heat. I learned that a double boiler worked great as a replacement for my microwave. I heated up the water in the bottom pot, and wrapped up my cheeseburger in aluminum foil, and set it in the top pan, and covered with a lid. I flipped the burger over every so often. The burger was so hot it had to cool some before I could eat it. I figured that if my microwave ever quits working, I can use the double boiler until I can get a new microwave.
Is there some kind on decor you could buy, or make, to hide the pipes behind? Wrap a string of Christmas lights around them for soft lighting at night.
Chel: I feel sorry for you in that extreme cold, but you are a very resourceful woman - when needs must you do whatever it takes . . 👌
@@joline2730 - Only two of the nights dipped down into the teens, or lower. Most of the nights stayed just above freezing. My mom had my brother-in-law bring me her kerosene heaters for those two nights. I stayed up and read books all night when I had the heat. I read a total of 17 books in those 15 days & nights. I would sit in front of a south facing window and soak in the warmth of the sun. The second book in the Harper Connelly Series by Charlaine Harris, An Ice Cold Grave, had the two main characters go without electricity for a few days. I knew exactly how they felt. 🤣😆😂
I stayed home, instead of going to my mom’s, because I had cats. I didn’t want to pack them & all their stuff to my mom’s house. Plus, my niece, her husband & kids were there. The cats would have hated it, so I chose to stay with the cats. I did go to mom’s once a week to shower & be warm for a few hours. Still, there’s no place like home, even if there’s no heat. 🤣😂
Apartment buildings in North America are old and many need repairs or just throw out old and put in new It is good that they are taking care of apartments in Russia like that.
You could hang ceiling to floor insulated curtains on the walls. It would help keep the heat in. And one thing that might help is to use those rubber floor tiles, they fit together like a puzzle, sometimes used in play rooms, but they come in different colors. Tent campers use them under an air mattress to keep the cold air from coming up through the mattress. And wall to wall carpets over those.
Just glad you're well and able to give us nice video ,keep smiling Ksenia , you are a bright light to me, Thank you .. 😃
Hi Ksenia, so nice to see you again! Usually, where you own part of the building you live in (your flat or apartment), it's called a Sectional Title Deed (in other words you own your portion of the building). You can, because you own your portion of the building, normally do anything you want inside your four walls as long it's not going to cause structural damage (like moving a load bearing wall). You must just ensure that your insulation is on the INSIDE of your apartment and not on the outside. The outside of the building must look the same everywhere and any changes has to come with the consent of the Body Corporate (or Buiding Adminstrators as you call them). The costs for outside and structural changes like te Radiators) normally comes out of the Levy Fee (or building administration fee). So if you want to put insulation on the INSIDE of your apartment and it's not going to cause structural damage, you can do that. I mean,you can paint your walls, laminate or carpet your floors, change your kitchen and bathroom (all of this is part of your Sectional Title Deed Ownership), so why shouldn't you be able to insulate your wall on the INSIDE of your Apartment? I would suggest that you talk to a person legally qualified to deal with Sectional or Portional, or Condo (whatever you call it) and just make sure of your rights as the owner of your Apartment. 🇿🇦
Kim: the rules and laws may be totally different in Russia ‼️🤪🤪
Oh dear sweetheart beautiful Ksenia, we also use similar radiators, they are just fine. They react faster (warm faster and cool faster) than heavy weight older radiators. Also consider placing some thermal reflectors between the walls and radiators to increase their radiation efficiencies. Sure your brother will help in repairs. Beware, proper thermal insulation is more important and effecive for heating than just heating...
You have subscribers who love you and will even listen to you talk about utility bills🥰! It is always a pleasure to see you. I hope you get this challenge resolved to your satisfaction. Please when you feel comfortable doing so, give us an update on your mother and your family.❤
Hi again Ksenia nice to see that you are back i always enjoy your videos. I live in sweden and here that old type of radiators are really retro fashion so ppl would go nuts if they took them down and put up the new "boring" ones. Take care, i hope you do good there, ill look forward to more videos.
Hello Ksenia! So happy to see you! Thank you for posting this video❤😊.
Something you could do for your cold wall would be to hang thick drapes on the entire wall. It’s non permanent and easy to remove. A cooking video with a traditional recipe would be great!
Maybe your brother could build a removable box to hide the pipes, paint it the same color as the wall.
I like these kind of videos they're interesting, your English is perfect
I look forward to the repair wideo.
If the radiators don’t heat up enough even at maximum setting, then I think the building management has made it like that so tenants do use lots of gas.
They don’t have individual central units, they get heated directly from a thermo plant so they don’t use more gas.
Good to see you again ! I had old pipes like that in my place in NYC. The place was built in the 1940’´s.
you could insulate the interior wall with additional panels and insulation material. It would make the room smaller but would give a second thermal layer.
Best wishes from Germany, Ksenia.
Ah, your versatile brother will handle the repairs! It's good to have a good handyman in the family.
I would suggest to ask him to look into adding insulation on the inside of your walls, some paneling should be relatively easy to install and would make a big difference, also covering those ugly pipes.
It is true that they need to do all the façade at once to avoid thermal leakage, but internal insulation doesn't affect the rest of the building, so you should be able to do as you please, in your own home.
At a minimum you should put reflective material behind the radiators, so that the heat is directed towards the interior of the apartment, and you aren't heating the courtyard.
There's different types of panels, but I'm sure your brother will know where to find the right stuff.
Be well!
I was thinking.
Along the same lines and was shocked to see she didn't have insulation.
Hello! 😘 I love your honesty! I'm in Chicago... thank you for showing me your lifestyle!
Your brother is probably going to do this but just in case I'll mention it. While the radiators are removed take the wall behind them apart and insulate the wall then plaster or dry wall over that. Good video. Its always good to hear from you. Best wishes from Canada.
Extend your curtain on the right side to hide the piping.
Detached homeowner here, so I can't say what apartment owners do, but we replaced our furnace/air conditioner in 2020 and it cost us roughly 9k USD out of pocket. House is around 2400 square feet.
Same, in Canada a furnace replacement was about 6k CND not including air con which would probably be 3-4 as well. I recently bought a new build and hopefully my furnace lasts 20 years haha
There are many UK citizens living in private or local government landlord homes, who have a lot of damp, to the point their children end up in hospital etc, yet they just give excuses all the time. For you to have upgraded heating system is very good, it shows that money paid to the government is being put back into the community. In UK we see very little improvements.
The pipes in my apartment are not attached to the wall, but iron. The biggest problem I see is that you only have one pipe. I have two one for heat coming up, the other for the cold going down. If the exit from the radiator goes into the same pipe the next on the pipe gets colder water. So if you are last on the pipe you don't get much heat.
Service charge system is very similar in Estonia. We have a service body for each block of approximately 100 apartments. My block was built in 1972.
:) Hello Ksenia, it was good to see you again in a new video! Can I share my personal experience with you about something really great about heating? I have heard about this stuff from the wall painter that redecorated our apartment a year ago. We had - still have - old but good working iron radiators. The walls behind them were very ugly as compared to the lovely new painting and dismantling them would have been too difficult, so the painter master suggested to put this special thing on the walls behind each radiator. I do not know its English name but I will send you a link where you can see it - it is in Hungarian but you will see the photo. Here in Hungary, we can buy this stuff in rolls - and he easily glued them on the walls behind the radiators with a special glue. This layer reflects back the heat from the radiators towards the rooms - and our apartment is super warm in winter, though the building itself was built in the 1970s and the outside has never been updated. It made his work a lot easier because he did not have to dismantle the radiators, he did not have to repair the walls - he covered it with this stuff, it is barely visible and its effect is super great, especially under the windows. Even right under the windows, the air is very pleasantly warm. This is it: hazravalo.hu/HUFOL_1-5-6 and another link: ledsziget.hu/Hotukros-Polifoam-5mm?.hu&
Good to see you! Glad you got an upgrade on your heating. I hope Dima can help to repair the sections they left uncovered.
It's interesting that taxes are collected for this purpose across the city. Here, everyone pays their own. Love this kind of topic. Looking forward to a next video when you have time! From Kansas USA 🇺🇸 🥰🌻
Except water. We pay our own AND pay taxes for the part that's not on our property. We pay for all of it basically but the part not on our property is taxes/mandatory crowdfunding.
Maybe you could hang up a Gobelin as a decoration on the cold wall, it may insulate a bit. Insulation comes from air that doesn't move, however moist must be able to vapour. So I thought of something that i not water tight, but big enough for the whole wall.
Hello Ksenia!!
Great to share the things of life 😊!
Yes I agree with you it's very ugly, but I hope the radiators work better than they look. If it's any consolation, British radiators look like this, but of course better radiators are available! You can buy covers for the pipework which can be painted. They're not very expensive and look a tiny bit less ugly. 🤗. Dima might have seen these ❤️
Hi Ksenia, 😊. I would definitely paint the pipes.
Hello Ksenia! Glad you are fine! I think these radiators will work well, they also have temperature valves!. From what I understand you don't have a condominium central heating boiler, but everything is centralized in a municipal thermoelectric power plant. Here each condominium has its own condensing boiler for heating, or even independent heating for each apartment. I don't live in a condominium, but by law I must also have a condensing boiler with radiators and valves and this to pollute less. We are compelled by law (EU law) to have this kind of heating. Wish you that everything will work well. Thank you for these updates ❤
It's lovely to see your update
Nice to see you again. I haven't seen any of your streams in a while.😊
Always the best wishes to you, Ksenia.
Love from Scotland 🇬🇧
Great video, and interesting subject very well explained. Can't wait to see the new one.
Good to see you haven.t been seeing your videos, I was worried!
Intersting info... I bet it will work better than before... I have the same kind of heating in the USA..... It is is my opinion the best kind of heating..Others have what's called forced air that comies out of vents from the floor ... I don't like those the air gets too dry...
So happy to see you🙏💕
Thank you for explaining the common property. I was listening to someone one day and he said communal services. I had no idea what that meant. I don't know, even if I lived in an apartment building which I only did one time, I don't think they used the term communal services. And if that also means things like shoveling the snow in the apartment area or shoveling the snow in the actual city, I still wouldn't know what it meant. In fact can't you tell I don't know what it means. Nobody shovels our snow Oh wait a minute I live in Florida. Well nobody shoveled our snow when I lived in Massachusetts either and sometimes the neighbors got a big plow and I don't know maybe they owned it and they plowed our driveway which was very nice of them because our driveway was I think 75 ft long. The garage was actually behind the house. I'll have to ask someone if it was actually that long but yeah it was behind the house I think that maybe they built it originally to put horses in or something. I'm not really sure. The house was built in 1927 so it's remotely possible. Anyway now that I've finished my rice I think I can stay awake long enough to watch your video if I don't talk too much myself. I was going to eat some real food instead of just a cup of rice but I was afraid I would fall asleep before I got to watch this. So I thought I would start with the rice and then if I'm still actually hungry then I'll eat something else. Back to the radiators and the bill. It's quite colorful. Of course only on the front.
I am also one of those people who get really cold and I also get really hot and I have an air conditioner in my window instead of the central air conditioning in our house which actually died like 15 years ago or so. But even before that I had my air conditioner that I brought with me from Massachusetts and we put it in the window because it was still too hot in my room in the summer. And then of course when our air conditioner died somebody came and fixed it and they said well it will be okay now but you won't have any heat in the winter. But we did. For at least a few years and then the heat stopped working. And it's a good thing that it's Florida. A couple of years ago my brother went to Home Depot and he got me a little portable heater for my bedroom. So I have an air conditioner in my window and this one this year it's not good. I liked the one I had before. It was responsive. You turned it up it went up You turned it down it went down This one it takes forever and ever and by then your body's a different temperature anyway and you're younger than me so it's possible you are having that time when your body decides its own temperature. But my body still does that. I don't know why. So I've been waking up in the morning and I've either been really cold or I've been really hot and my sheets are damp and my clothes are damp and it really stinks. And we replaced the air conditioner with a different air conditioner but it wasn't any better and I just talked to my brother when we were changing the bedding tonight and he says he's having trouble with his air conditioner and his window also. So! There's something wrong with the air conditioners all of a sudden. Of course my roommate Dennis is perfectly fine with his air conditioner. I don't think he got a new one. And not only that but they used to last for a really really really really really really long time like the first one I had lasted for 12 years. But then they started putting styrofoam inside them and it would get moldy and so Dennis would come and take the air conditioner out and change it with a different one and then he would take the old one apart and he would clean it all up inside. And we would wait while he was taking weeks to repair air conditioners that shouldn't need repairing and cleaning them all up and then he would rotate them between our windows. Like you know "I get the next clean air conditioner! No it's my turn" But this air conditioner it looks a lot like the last one I had but I swear honestly it was running for hours and it was 75° in my room and I was too hot. And then I finally got it to go down and it was 72° and I was too cold. And ordinarily I like it to be 77 or 78°. Yes it's all Fahrenheit and this I'm just really frustrated right now because it was cold and I tried to fix it then now of course it's hot but it says that it's 72° and there's no way and the thermometer in my room says it's 74° and I'm sorry if it was really 74° I would be cold and I am not. Oh well so let me turn it down again or I would call it turn it up as in getting more air conditioning but everybody else here calls it turn it down.
I hope that your brother can help you with your walls and your pipes or somebody can suggest something they probably already have. And by the way one year it was just so cold and everything was so expensive that we would have these ads on TV for this thing called a snuggie. And you put it on and it covered your whole body and it had a hood and it covered your feet and down your arms and I guess you could put it on top of your regular clothes I don't know. I was waiting for the one that you could plug in and it would be an electric snuggie. Unfortunately I can't remember whether that happened. It was cold last winter. Okay it was maybe 40° but remember we don't have heat. So the first day the house will stay warm and then after that it will start getting cold and we always have one day delay. Maybe it wasn't last year maybe it was the year before. But we come up with all these creative ideas on how to stay warm. And I'm sure that by now somebody has suggested various things. But yes I do know about being one of those cold people but also being one of those too hot people. I have a really small window where I'm actually comfortable. They say that's more common in women. But then again if I have like a piece of my hair comes off and it's lying over my arm I can feel it. Sometimes I can't even see it and I can still feel it and I have to go looking for where is that piece of hair I know it's there. I'm like that lady in the fairy tale about the princess and the pea. Anyway I hope it all works out and if it doesn't someone will come up with a good idea. And I still haven't come up with the name of the guy who comes and fixes stuff in your apartment and I should Google it but... It's really late. At least it would seem that the plastic pipes would be better than metal pipes because every time we have metal pipes they get corroded. Of course that's in my duck house. Now we have plastic pipes to hold my duck house together and hold the shelves on and hold the roof on and the whole thing is made out of PVC pipes and hardware cloth and random pieces of wood that were parts of gardens in the past. I don't think it's even really real wood. But I don't know what it's called. But at least I got to sell three ducks today. Of course it cost more to feed them when I had them then I got from selling them but that's okay. At least we now have fewer ducks.
Ksenija bring your curtains all the way up to the ceiling and cover the pipes from the start of the wall on both sides..just an idea.
Hi Kesenia, just do the best you can with what you have😍😘
Hi Ksenia ! I find that the radiators are OK and I can already tell you that they will be at the right temperature more quickly than with the old cast iron ones. BUT ! The problem that remains with you is the insulation of the walls and behind the radiators! If you don't insulate, you'll pay a lot for - poorly - heating! So, 1) behind the radiators, use a roll of 'special radiator' insulation: one side of this roll is a thin metal layer stuck to the insulation and is intended to return the radiant heat towards the inside of the room while the other side is insulating and prevents heat from escaping into the wall. You can glue or use thumbtacks to attach this insulation on the wall behind the radiators. 2) Insulation of the front wall: I don't understand why you ar not allowed* to insulate YOUR INTERIOR wall? In your place, I wouldn't say anything and I would do the work with 3 or 4 or 5 cm thick Styrofoam insulation panels: light, very easy to use, to cut, and ABOVE ALL it's going to be hot at your place! And FINALLY, your heating bill will significantly decrease! ... enough to save money for a trip abroad 😉
* we 'll come next year if it is a problem = NEVER !!!
Styrofoam is paintable with an acrylic waterbased lack or coverable with wall papers
I live in Canada and condo owners are responsible for all the maintenance in their building.
Each building is registered as a corporation which is owned by the individuals who own their units.
By law, each condominium corporation must maintain a reserve fund that is used for repairs and maintenance of the common areas and equipment. The owners are responsible for repairs inside their units.
Every 3 or 5 years an engineering firm must do a study to determine what work needs to be done in the future. Based on that study, the corporation sets the fees that owners must pay each month in order to have sufficient funds to pay for those repairs and replacements.
If the condominium corporation does not have sufficient funds, the management board can levy a special assessment which can be several thousands dollars depending on the cost of the repairs.
All these costs fall on the shoulders of the owners of the building. It is not shared with any other building.
Yes, like condo associations in the US. External and shared things are maintained with the owners’ monthly dues (which can be big!) But our interior walls, fixtures, plumbing, etc are the responsibilities of the owners. What gets complicated is where the communal vs private lines are drawn. Like with pipes shared in the walls and frustratingly, our balconies.
So interesting!! 😮😃 I remember, when I just came to ❤Belarus❤ last Summer, and at the Hotel she told me that from the 10th until the 22nd of August (I think) there will not be hot water - I asked, do you mean in my room?? Or at the entire Hotel? And then, she told me "no, in the entire neighbourhood!" I was stunned!! 😃 As, in israel, suuch things are either at the specific apartment, or (at the most!) at the single building level, but the municipality has got nothing to do with it. The things that regard the common property are at the building level, and are cared for by _"Va'ad haBayith"_ (Hebrew: "The House' Committee"), which includes two or three of the (apartment owning) neighbours, who volunteered (usually after being coerced into it by all other neighbours...🙃) to deal witjh these things,, at least until they can shove that responsibility onto _another_ neighbour LOL And, of course, each of the neighbours must pay them a certain tax, in order to support the maintainance of the building (garden, elevator, roof, staircase-cleaning etc.), which of course means a large chunk of the _Va'ad's_ members responsibility (the one they despise most of all, of course) is to chase each of their neighbours, in demand for them to _finally_ pay up the money they still owe since last year's February, or something... 😂
I'd never actually thought it can be so different elsewhere. 🙂
Love your videos.
You can put a reflektive foile behind the Radiator and put some small ventilators under it for more airflow. You can masking the hole pipe with Isolation Material for a good Look and moor effectivity.
Your can buy a foile from tesa called tesa Mole for Your Windows. Installation is easy.
You can save about 10 to 15% of Energy.
And you can create Content for Your channal.
You are a Candel glowing in the dark. 🤗
Heart From Stalingrad ❤🎉😊Привет Ksenia!!
Hi Ksenia, in Canada we can purchase 'space heaters' or ceramic heaters with fans for rooms that are perpetually cold or seem to never get warm enough. I'm wondering if you could purchase something like that in Russia, it just plugs into the wall and you can put it on a timer. When our furnace was filled with ice in the winter we just heated our house with gas fireplace and space heater.
Hi Ksenia, It is very interesting to hear how things work for people in different parts of the world and I'm glad you thought to record a vlog about the changes to your heater in your apartment. I am living in a house in Melbourne Australia which we have just sold. In this house everything to do with heating and cooling is our own responsibility and we make our own choices based on research and what we can afford. We hire independent contractors/companies to provide the systems and to do the installation (electricians and plumbers). These companies do not always leave our home in a tidy state but most try to repair and clean up the area because they want us to give them a good review so that they can attract more customers. Shortly, we hope to buy an apartment. As with your apartment, ours will have areas that are common property and we will not be able to change or be responsible for the repair and maintenance of them. This property is maintained by a body corporate which is either a committee made up of owners who are willing to be involved in managing the common property including making repairs, insurances, paying bills for common services etc. Sometimes the apartment is managed by an independent company that is paid to do this work on behalf of the owners. The body corporate assigns each apartment a yearly amount, paid monthly according to the size of the apartments. This will vary from year to year according to the amenities in the building (elevators, swimming pools, gardens etc) and the needs anticipated for the next year. The fees can be as much as $7 - $10k. I really feel for you in this situation both because you are not able to make improvements to manage the heat in your apartment, and also because you have to work out ways to hid the ugly mess. I hope you find ways to fix these problems. Make sure you research how to remove the radiator first so that you don't end up with a mess. When you put it back together you may need to bleed the air out of the pipes. Good luck!
KSENIA! I missed your videos
I live in the Canadian Province of Quebec and my house is heated by electric heaters. We can turn them on even in summer. Former homes that I used to live in had oil furnaces & natural gas furnaces.
So good to see you again ☺️ . Nice vlog . Sending you love from Canada 😊
Is the heat turned on and off on a preplanned date, or is it depended on the weather? What month does it typically get cold in St. Petersburg?
I am sure it works the same there as it does in the US. They get a bid for the work and take the cheapest one. Then you get what they give you. At least the part that you have to repair is an easy fix and should not take your brother long to fix. Those radiators look nice but I guess we will see if it helps with your heating and the cost of heating your apartment. By the way, I thought all Russians were cold-blooded due to the location of your country. We are waiting for the update from the repair, thank you for the tour...
Install ceiling fans in all rooms to blow theat down towards the floor and buy a couple small ceramic heaters. If that doesn't fix your problem completely then you'll have to get you a man to snuggle up to.
If your installed heating is inadequate, perhaps you could buy an electric heater, say a fan heater, or two to boost the heating in your apartment. Just a suggestion. Of course, that would mean using more electricity and higher electric bills.
Probably because your apt is considered a condo and there is a lot of red tape on what you can or can't do. That's the way it is in Canada. My landlord controls my heating so I bought a ceramic space heater for extra heat!! Take care.:)
❤
Your vertical pipes appear to be mounted to reduce noise from vibration. Box those in or put a cardboard tube around them. Take photos of everything you cover so that you will know what has to be removed if there is a problem.
Good to see you back again....
Great video....
Greetings from Coventry U.K....
As someone has already mentioned. Ask your brother to box the pipes in and either paint or wallpaper over it.
Well, the pipes are warm too, so you will get less heat if you box them in. Start by painting them. No I don't think they would do it like that in their own house, if they were allowed to do it themselves.
you can put tin foil behind radiators so heat goes into the lat not the wall also you could box those pipes in to hide then ,take care
Yes, I know about this method. I will definitely use it if I get cold this winter.
@@StPetersburgme If your brother going to remove the radiators for decoration you would better to fit reflective insulation foils during the decoration. you dont have to remove rads. next winter again.
Also, you can replace the kitchen radiator with a higher output one.
The uninsulated external wall you mentioned can be insulated from internal side with a 50 or 100mm Celotex insulation boards.
@@StPetersburgme Hiya 🙋♀️
The parts of your building like the hallways, lifts and basement we call 'The Common Parts', here in the UK. The charges (in a flat or apartment like yours) we call 'Maintenance Charges' and we pay a yearly sum, they are all different depending on who owns the building (not Government owned) and they charge what they like - some are very expensive 😒😒
The comment about putting up a thick curtain along that cold wall is a good idea 👌
All the best to your mother - and brother 😃
Privet iz Finlyandiyi :) Those seem for pretty standard style radiators, 2 or 3 row ones, should be more efficient than the old ones, if they are not much smaller. Atleast at start they should be better since usually old ones might be really rusty from inside which decreases the efficiency. Interesting stuff :) In those pipes, looks pretty standard stuff too, but maybe they should have used white attachments for the pipes instead of chrome/iron style ones. I am pretty sure you can paint them up but maybe you will get used to them ☺️
Btw are the radiators made in Russia or in China?
yes , you can paint it, those are like that so they dont have to put inside the wall (less work, less time, less cost), those are also of plastique because it last longer, is less expensive ans easier to install.
There is sth like aluminium foild, kind of insulation you can use behind the radiator to keep the heat inside.
I would shorten your curtains and maybe hang some wool on the walls in the wintertime. It seems that they should not have put your shelf above the heater.
Tame: it's not a shelf, it's the window sill . . .
Communal living like in a condo is not like a freestanding home. I have to let people into my condo a few times a year for mandatory services, sometimes updates to the infrastructure that aren’t to my liking or are crappy and fail. I do pay a lot to my condo association in monthly dues, and have not done the math whether that’s justified, but I can say that if I owned a solo home and there was a leak in the roof, I’d probably just live with rain buckets. So there’s plusses and minuses to both.
Lol ,can't keep up with ksenia. Always in the move over there in Big Russia. Trucker here. She has more miles than me😮😊
It’s dangerous to have those curtains in front of the radiator. Please be careful!😊
Is that external brickwork behind the heater? If so no wonder you are feeling the cold.
In the 1960’s in Australia they did not insulate buildings, they do now and it definitely makes a difference.
Temperatures where I live range between minus 2 to a max of 47.5 .
Why take so much break between two videos?
Can you buy a small heater to add to the warmth? In America they sell tiny heaters that plug into the wall and stays on the wall. I bought one for 20.00 and it heats a room quickly.
Okay so I'm stupid :-) I think the people who own apartments in the US have something called a condo fee for their condominium cuz that's what they call it and that would probably take care of all the things related to the common areas and the shoveling snow and the radiators in the hallways and the light fixtures and I don't know Maybe that guy what do they call him? Well they have a guy in apartment buildings that you can go to if you have something broken that's not major or if you lock yourself out or whatever and ordinarily when it's not 1:00 a.m. I can remember what he's called. But that doesn't cover things like shoveling the streets of the city. But it would cover like the sidewalks outside of a condominium building because apparently if you don't shovel the sidewalk in front of where you live then you can't get mail and if people slip and fall on the sidewalk then they can sue you. So everybody has to go out and shovel their thing unless somebody else is responsible or they want to pay somebody else to do it. My brother says also that they have long electric and hot water pipes over in Tampa that go between buildings and I've never seen that anywhere else in the US. Like every building has its own electric well it has a wire that comes in from the electric grid but it also has its own hot water inside the building... Somewhere. So that's different. Hopefully you will be warm this winter but how will I know if I don't shut up and stop commenting?
Hi Ksenia! Hopefully your new radiators are more energy efficient and your heating bill will be less. As for insulating the exterior walls, you would have to take down the dry wall and put insulation behind it then put up new dry wall and plaster and paint it. If your building management won't do it, maybe you could get a quote from a local carpenter to see if the cost is worth it to you.
Were the iron pipes ugly, also?
Missed you!