Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.
Best Of
Re: Understanding heat flows in high mass heating systems in old houses
@PeteA, I forgot to mention that our boilers start cold, and run until the thermostats satisfy. That typical takes around 45 minutes, during which time the water temp goes from 68 to maybe 130-140 max in the boiler, and maybe 125 in the radiators.
Then our radiators themselves average around 300 lbs each, times 13 rads, for about 4000 pounds of cast iron. Even more thermal mass. (Since the specific heat capacity of cast iron is only 1/9th that of water, this is like 450 lbs of water or so in terms of heat capacity. So now we have an equivalent heat capacity of 750+450=1200 lbs water.)
So add up the masses of your cast iron rads and the water they contain. You may be surprised.
You may be surprised to find that most of the water volume is in the radiators themselves, not the piping. In our case, we have about 80 gallons in the cast iron rads, about 45 in the piping, and about 10 gallons in the boiler itself. So you can see that even if we replaced all the high-volume piping with Pex, we'd still have over 90 gallons of water, or about 750 pounds. That's still a lot of thermal mass.
I will be testing something similar this winter in my house but my setup is different since I kept the radiators but I've removed a lot of the thermal mass of water out of the system when I repiped everything to pex al pex.
Then our radiators themselves average around 300 lbs each, times 13 rads, for about 4000 pounds of cast iron. Even more thermal mass. (Since the specific heat capacity of cast iron is only 1/9th that of water, this is like 450 lbs of water or so in terms of heat capacity. So now we have an equivalent heat capacity of 750+450=1200 lbs water.)
So add up the masses of your cast iron rads and the water they contain. You may be surprised.
jesmed1
3
Celebrations 🍾 of Life...
Today as I mourn the loss of my **** Butkus (Life Coach), The 42nd Anniversary of my Father Bart Sweeney III Thoroughbred Horseman's Death, I celebrate the engagement of my Vassar Sr Monika Rose 🌹 to Eli Fahey Vassar Basketball 🏀 Star from Fairfield Connecticut...Good fambly...L'Chaim! Life is good... Mad Dog 🐕
Re: Antique cast iron wall hung radiators BTUs
I actually did a Load Calculation for heating that room. I did not do the Heat Gain because we are talking about heating only as you can see by the absence of Latent Heat numbers. It appears that with the Ceiling Glass and the wall glass along with a guess at the amount of door glass you might have, You will need about 27,000 BTU of radiation for that space. Since those 9 rads will only produce about 12,000 BTUh at 180° water temperature, you will need to go look for about 10 or 11 more panels. You could make the entire brick wall one big radiator. Or you might select to place 10 in the lower wall under the window like this.
. I'm not sure how your room is designed with some lower wall or ALL CLASS from ceiling to floor.
The attached diagram and load calculation would change if you do not have 2 to 3 feet of wall below the windows like in the picture above.
The load calculation is based on very little infiltration because of how well everything is sealed up when they make those rooms. I watched a couple of videos to see what I might be dealing with. To get the R4 equivalent rating from my software the windows actually say triple glass. That is not a mistake. That is the closest thing in the drop down menu for the windows you have.
I usually charge a lot for this service but I did it just to see how it would turn out. That is a load of almost 100 BTUh per square foot. To put that into perspective, A 100 year old balloon construction home with no insulation might be near 50 BTUh /sq ft and new construction would be less than 20 BTUh /sq ft.
So you will need a separate zone for that room and a separate thermostat.
Good luck on acquiring more of those radiators. If it is done up just right, it could look great.
. I'm not sure how your room is designed with some lower wall or ALL CLASS from ceiling to floor.The attached diagram and load calculation would change if you do not have 2 to 3 feet of wall below the windows like in the picture above.
The load calculation is based on very little infiltration because of how well everything is sealed up when they make those rooms. I watched a couple of videos to see what I might be dealing with. To get the R4 equivalent rating from my software the windows actually say triple glass. That is not a mistake. That is the closest thing in the drop down menu for the windows you have.
I usually charge a lot for this service but I did it just to see how it would turn out. That is a load of almost 100 BTUh per square foot. To put that into perspective, A 100 year old balloon construction home with no insulation might be near 50 BTUh /sq ft and new construction would be less than 20 BTUh /sq ft.
So you will need a separate zone for that room and a separate thermostat.
Good luck on acquiring more of those radiators. If it is done up just right, it could look great.
Re: Does the BFPV look like it needs replacing?
The fiber washers are seeping, it would be best to replace them. Send me your address and I will send a couple, use the private message function if you want, or bob.rohr@caleffi.com
We have changed the design to use o-ring seals now on that and many other product
We have changed the design to use o-ring seals now on that and many other product
hot_rod
3
Re: Ball Valves
This is very useful information, thanks.FilthyTeaSnob said:To that end I have exclusively used their 77-140-10 series valves. They have a naming key that's rather long and confusing but the 77 series (not 77c or 77AR) is the no-expense-spared, we didn't cut corners on cost, valve I use. I personally try and get the 316 stainless ball, stem an d handle as it never rots (other than the plastic handle cover).
Re: Radiant heat of steam boiler
Speaking as a layman/homeowner/coal stoker boiler owner;
A single drop of water used to create wet steam expands 1,700 times.
A single or double drop header will create dry steam faster and deliver
heat to the radiators faster to heat them faster which will release the heat more
slowly.
The dry steam will send this heat into the radiators more quickly as it has
little if any condensate in the dry steam and they will shed heat back into
the living space for a longer period.
If your beautiful steam boiler does not have a great deal of
water in the steam chest it may not be at all possible to feed enough
hot water to heat the floor.
The other issue is if the steam boiler has enough water in the
steam chest would cycle more often and consume more fuel
if the slab is not adequately insulated also.
A steam licensed plumber and or a system design office of a
larger plumbing firm would have to look at your heating system
and the pex size in the floor and tell you if steam radiators would
be a better method of heating your basement instead of in floor pex.
You have to remember that every time you pull water out of the
steam chest to heat the floor you are lowering the water temperature
in the steam chest and the thermocouple will sense this and fire the
boiler.
Using small cast panel radiators would be a much easier way to add heat
into your basement by branching off the riser pipe to the upper floors.
If you have a one pipe system:
If you do not already have a single drop or double drop header in your heating system
adding a drop header or double drop header and the cast panel radiators would
heat your basement and increase your boilers efficiency.
I believe A 2 pipe system would require much more plumbing and pipe and any radiator
would have to be hung near the ceiling to allow for adequate drainage back to the
boilers condensate return tapping but I am not sure of this.
A single drop of water used to create wet steam expands 1,700 times.
A single or double drop header will create dry steam faster and deliver
heat to the radiators faster to heat them faster which will release the heat more
slowly.
The dry steam will send this heat into the radiators more quickly as it has
little if any condensate in the dry steam and they will shed heat back into
the living space for a longer period.
If your beautiful steam boiler does not have a great deal of
water in the steam chest it may not be at all possible to feed enough
hot water to heat the floor.
The other issue is if the steam boiler has enough water in the
steam chest would cycle more often and consume more fuel
if the slab is not adequately insulated also.
A steam licensed plumber and or a system design office of a
larger plumbing firm would have to look at your heating system
and the pex size in the floor and tell you if steam radiators would
be a better method of heating your basement instead of in floor pex.
You have to remember that every time you pull water out of the
steam chest to heat the floor you are lowering the water temperature
in the steam chest and the thermocouple will sense this and fire the
boiler.
Using small cast panel radiators would be a much easier way to add heat
into your basement by branching off the riser pipe to the upper floors.
If you have a one pipe system:
If you do not already have a single drop or double drop header in your heating system
adding a drop header or double drop header and the cast panel radiators would
heat your basement and increase your boilers efficiency.
I believe A 2 pipe system would require much more plumbing and pipe and any radiator
would have to be hung near the ceiling to allow for adequate drainage back to the
boilers condensate return tapping but I am not sure of this.
leonz
1
The last word about c-wire thermostats and wiring diagrams.
Not that I actually believe this wiring diagram will eliminate all questions about the topic but this should make it fairly simple to do for the next guy. Or girl.
(photo redacted due to a labeling error)
JohnNY
9
Re: 3/4 copper to male slip adapter
I sweat both adapters to the tube, screwed it into the tank, then cut the tube to lengthEBEBRATT-Ed said:Nice trick. Did you just use the slip adapter to wrench the other adapter in and then sweat onto the copper sticking out? Or did you cut the outside copper off and thread something on to the slip adapter? I used to drill out compression x male adapters so the 3/8" OD or 1/2" od copper tubing would slide through to the bottom of an oil tank and tighten the compression adapter into a bushing on top of the tank.
Basically making a place to attach a wrench without damaging the copper
hot_rod
3
3/4 copper to male slip adapter
Working on the solar tank today. I needed a 10” brass nipple to make a clean connection
I drilled out a 3/4 adapter with a 7/8 holesaw, soldered it onto a piece of L copper
1-1/8 box fit perfectly
I drilled out a 3/4 adapter with a 7/8 holesaw, soldered it onto a piece of L copper
1-1/8 box fit perfectly
hot_rod
4
Re: Replumbing: Solder or Threads for Ball Valves
Another pro tip I would not have thought of.Mad Dog_2 said:Slip coupling...just make sure you mark pipes so that the couple is equidistant on each side. Mad Dog 🐕