Smelly new radiators- help!

[nbsnj]

Please help me. On Friday we had the plumbers remove a large steam radiator out of my daughter's room and had them install it downstairs. Upstairs was too hot, downstairs too cold, made sense. In place of the one taken from daughter's room, the plumber installed a smaller cast iron? radiator. As soon as the thing was in her room, even prior to installation, it was emitting a strong odor. We had an identical one installed in our master bedroom, as there was no radiator in there when we recently bought this house. Our identical radiator had no odor, so I asked the plumber about this and he said "Oh it will, once installed and heat kicks on." And he was right, once the heat was running through it, the same smell came out. The one in my daughters room, however, smells strong when the radiator is on or not. The smell has overtaken her room. She is only 17 months old and I am not comfortable having her breathe this in.

The plumber said this is "new radiator smell," that it comes from oil inside the radiator around the threading (something like that). I have also heard it could be the primer. the plumber said 24 hours, a plumbing supply house told me two weeks for this smell to go away. Meanwhile, I cannot run these radiators at night when we are in the bedrooms sleeping cause it smells so bad.... and it's the middle of winter! I don't think I can stomach this one more day and I don't know what to do. I tried scrubbing the radiator with lemons, soap, cleaning sprays... it is not working. There is no name on the radiator, so I can't call a manufacturer and the plumber just says this will go away. Does anybody have any idea what this is or any advice? Thanks.

 

[Krow]

That smell would the the premier on the rad. It will take a little longer to die down. The alternative would have been painting it and letting sit for a few days before installation. You would still get some sort of odour coming from the rad, but not as bad.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[alex7]

It is the primer.
We just bought a house and a bunch of radiators were leaky so we had no choice but change them right now. The rads we bought were old refurbished rads but newly primed and painted. They were primed about a week before we installed them and they did smell a lot for at least 3- 4 days. It was awful but again no choice.
Then another rad broke and we had to replace. That one got primed the day before we installed it and boy did it stink! Awful. Way more than the other ones. It took about a week to tone down.
That's why is recommended to paint radiators in the summer. We need to paint all the rads of the house and we did not touch any waiting for the spring. But then we had no choice for the broken ones.
I suggest to get you daughter out of there for a few days until the smell gets better and open a window.
It will pass, just be patient!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just the joys of buying new "old" homes.