Bumbling with Boilers

Some tenants recently vacated a rental unit of mine and so I got to work getting it cleaned up.  One of the issues we need to address is tiling the bathroom floor and walls.  There was a very awkward looking radiator in the bathroom which was no longer functioning so I decided to grab my trusty saws-all and cut it out.

As I started cutting, water started spraying out of the pipe.  The boiler system has been non-functioning for four years or more so I had no idea why water was coming out.  When I finished the cut water started pouring out onto the bathroom floor.  As it turns out, the system had never been drained so the entire system was now draining itself out of my freshly cut pipe! Whoops!  Sticking my thumb in the hole quickly stopped the flow but I needed something else to block the pipe.  Fortunately, I was able to find a piece of wallpaper from the bathroom that was loose and wad it up into a ball and cram it into the hole.  Presto!  Leak fixed. 

I then went to the basement and drained the system.  As the water drained I finished the cut.  What I didn't notice while I was hauling this 100lb scrap of metal across my carpet was that black rusty goo was oozing out the bottom.  Whoops again!

I will update you on how the carpet cleaning goes and if rusty goo really will come out of carpet.  Stay tuned...