Gravity Hot Water Question

Mark Anderson_3

Thanks for the help. I only show flashes of brilliance (such as asking you guys whether or not this would work before I went and did it.) but some of you guys give me something to aspire to.
Radiators here are out of the question, and may never have worked as this area was at one time a porch and became heated later. Later still the rads were capped and replaced with electric. I think if I install bboard on its own t-stat and leave the electric as a backup he'll be ok.
I don't want to interfere with the main pipes at all because of asbestos.

Mark Anderson_3

Gravity Hot Water Question

I have a customer with a gravity hot water system in a funeral home. Each cast iron radiator is piped to the main supply and return pipe in the basement. Several years ago the radiators were removed from one room and replaced with electric heat in an air handler (when a/c was added). He would like to put baseboard in so he can discontinue use of the electric heat.
I was planning to use 27ft of 1" fin and tube baseboard connected to the old radiator stubs (supply and return).

The question is;

Will I get enough flow through the baseboard to provide the rated output?

Weezbo

how about a by pass and 003?

cut in a by pass and a 003 that way you can jolly up the flow and an otherby pass and balancing vale would circulate the flow "tuned" to the system. sort of a sub loop to the gravity system.

Mark Anderson_3

The room in question is quite a ways from the boiler through a maze of crawl spaces. Can I create a bypass by connecting the supply and return together beneath the floor and then connecting the bb supply and return to that with a circulator? How and where would I use the differential by-pass?
I'm afraid anything I do with a circulator will create a short circuit through the nearest radiator.

Weezbo

mark....

i am going to mill around in my computer programs the computer dumped a while back and i cant scan a drawing to application anymore as the lexmark printer scanner has directions in Swedish or some aushlander sprekinzie i dont savey. i havent rebooted siggys program as i am sorta leery of this thing now.

while i am looking for a way to draw something for you ,think of closely spaced Ts, 4 of them... off a single line , two to a by pass with a t taken off for the supply to the emmitter, the same lash up after the emmitter,one line has a check and globe the other has a balance valve, the flow has a choise to return back into the stream off the single line or it can chose a path ahead of that t thru a balancing valve. all you are establishing is flow not influencing all down stream emitters...

Steamhead (in transit)

Mark, that baseboard

probably won't heat at all. It has too much resistance and requires hotter water than the rads in the rest of the system.

Why not try to find some rads someplace that would fit the way the space is being used now?

kevin coppinger_4

I am w/...

Steamhead...what happened to the old radiators(please don't say they were trashed...) find a way to put what you had back in....the Gravity systems were designed to run low flow lower temp than todays stuff. kpc

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Mark Anderson_3

The old rads are years gone. Their handyman just trashed a bunch more from a rental they're renovating. (I told him to call me next time). Either way, there isn't the room to reinstall radiators.
I'm thinking at this point to run pex back to the boiler and use a pump. I'm sure I can find a supply and return tapping I could use. This room is wide open on two sides to rad heated rooms so the fact that I couldn't operate the boiler independently from this zone should not be a problem.
There are other issues here, but he's retiring in 2 years and would rather not do a total upgrade.

As for lower temp; I haven't checked, but I'm sure the aquastat is going to be set at 180 by now. I don't know why they make them adjustable...

Mark Anderson_3

I would appreciate drawings- I'm not doing so well visualizing this...

Weezbo

i am still \" painting away \":)

steam head and kevin have a point in what they are saing ..the iron hangs in there Radiating along.. your idea of a seperate zone would be just about as good a solution as the materials and time would be a push...and you would be not having to oversize the emmitters to make up for the lower operating temps.

Steamhead (in transit)

That should work

and you could mix down the rad zone so it won't overheat.