Best Of

Great discussions, everyone!

First and foremost, I will reiterate that upgrading 30 a-year-old boiler to an Energy Kinetics system will cut fuel use. Excellent independent studies that support this conclusion are referenced in this page that links to a report from the Department of Energy that evaluates system types and designs, and this broad based report from NORA that analyzes before and after fuel consumption normalized with local heating degree day data. The NORA report was recently completed and shows the average savings from upgrading older equipment to Energy Kinetics design to be 25%; savings of over 40% was also documented.

We recommend zoning comfort areas. This typically means zoning bedrooms together, maybe a master bedroom/bathroom on its own, and then zoning other (groups of) living spaces together. Micro zoning is expensive and inefficient because at least one zone is often calling throughout much of the winter which keeps the system in standby and wastes energy. Zoning comfort areas combines comfort (obviously) and efficiency. Unfortunately, I don’t have studies like on boiler upgrades to identify the savings that are possible.

@SecondEmpireHouse , my suggestion would be to consider breaking your house up into zones for comfort reasons with the understanding that you’ll get some savings along with the comfort benefits. For a smaller budget, maybe you can break up the first floor as its own zone as that sounds like it’s your primary living space; maybe there are other logical ways to break out comfort areas that make sense for you and your home for a budget you feel is more acceptable.

I like your plan to improve your building envelope with retrofit storm windows (although I don't have experience with QUANTAPANEL) and weatherizing to address "low hanging fruit" - basement rim joists, knee walls in attics, high hat lights, etc. are typically cost effective targets.

Best,

Roger

Does having multiple zones in large house in Western Massachusetts save money?

Definitely in eastern Massachusetts…. But it might work in Western Mass also.

I believe that properly zoning your home will save a significant amount of money for several reasons

1. You said: "The bedrooms on the 3rd floor and 1st floor are always occupied. The bedrooms on the 2nd floor are occasionally occupied."  By setting the thermostat in that unoccupied area to a lower setting by 10° those rooms will not lose as much heat thru the exterior walls, floors and ceilings.  There will be some heat loss from the surrounding rooms into the unheated or lower heated rooms, but that cooler space will act as insulation between the heated areas and the unheated or lower heated rooms. 
2. You said: "The third floor is usually 10 degrees hotter during the heating season." This means that those third floor rooms are losing more heat as a result of over heating them.  By controlling those rooms to a lower temperature, the difference between the cold wall outside to inside temperature difference will be lower.  That temperature difference is the definition of a load calculation. No one on this site will disagree that the same home built in Upstate Maine and in the middle of Virginia have completely different ∆T making the Virginia home with the lower ∆T have a lower fuel cost.  So those third floor rooms with the lower indoor temperature as a result of zoning will use less fuel than if you left things as is with one zone.
3. You Said : "The supply pipes in the basement that feed the radiators are very large."  That large pipe with a large water volume will use more fuel to heat it up, so the response time from the call for heat to the thermostat being satisfied will be longer, but there is a savings on the back end where that same water will take longer to cool off.  With the EK thermal purge feature that savings will be very little, but there will be some savings.  
4. There are studies that show that proper zoning can actually lower the fuel needed to keep the home comfortable, for example: you may not need to send hot water to a zone that has a substantial solar gain while rooms on the north side of the home require heat. That way no heat is wasted being sent to rooms that do not need heat.  

I believe there are other reasons that zoning is a good idea.  Comfort is worth something.  If you could put a number on that, then you can add that to the savings.  Would you pay $1.00 per day to be more comfortable?  Then there is $100.00 value to add to the savings for all the years that EK boiler is heating your home with the properly zoned system.  Just be careful that you don't create MicroZones that will wreak havoc with your system.  

North side/South side.  May be a good strategy if you are thinking about more than just first floor, second floor, third floor. 

Also, those photos of some of the radiators look like an old "Paul System". That was a Steam System with two pipes and no traps. The supply was one size larger than the return. That would have been an easy system to convert from Steam to Hot Water years ago. @SecondEmpireHouse may be correct about it being a steam system at one time.

Either a Gravity Hot Water or a Steam system with big pipes can often make for unusable basement space as a result of the need to properly pitch the piping to allow for the condensate or gravity water flow. Removing those head knockers to gain additional space has another value that needs to have a dollar value placed on it. The real estate market can tell us what those extra rooms might be worth at resale time.

I would zone it if it were my place.