second floor not hot enough..

eisch

two part question...

so I have a hot water boiler in my brick bungalow in chicago. I have only been in this house since December so I'm not to familiar with this system...
so my second floor has been remodeled and about 40 feet of fin tube baseboard heat was added to the system..

the second floor doesn't get hot enought......

I have some pics here
http://www.eisch13.techweenies.com/photo6.html

are those fitting in the pic resistors?
can I just reduce the flow to the first floor and get more heat upstairs????


second question...
I am remodeling and would like to replace all the old steel pipes with copper.. what size copper pipe should I use???

should I place the second floor on it's own loop?
or can I get it dialed in to flow better and heat correctly?

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Iron radiators in the rest of the house? If so, fin tube baseboard and iron radiators can't work together on the same zone. Evening zoning them gets tricky because you'll likely need vastly different supply temperatures.

In all honesty your post sounds like the beginning of a heating nightmare that's all-too-frequently relayed here.

1) You probably changed heat emitters to virtually incompatible types. It's also highly likely that the new baseboard was sized to work at 180 degrees while the radiators likely work at a much lower temperature.

2) You're thinking about replacing the big, old pipes in the basement--probably without changing all of the feeds to the radiators.

If you're doing this yourself, study, study, study and proceed VERY carefully and only after you FULLY understand what you are doing and any potential impact on the rest of the system. If you're having the work professionally done, make certain that the person doing the work is actually a heating professional!

I'm primarily a hard-core DIYer myself and give those warnings with the utmost sincerity.

eisch

looking for a temporary fix

mainly need to get more heat to the upstairs.
once I get through this heating season I'll be replacing the system anyway..
just cant afford to screw up my boiler before spring