Consequence of installing modern boiler

Perry_3

that old crane flew right out of the basement....

It stumbled a bit on the way - but once it got out of the back stairs it was gone just like that.... I have no idea if it few south for the winter or not.

Perry

Perry_3

Consequence of installing modern boiler

Actually, this was recognized up front. I underestimated how much of a problem.

My old original 1954 "Monster" Crane Firetube boiler heated the basement by radiation.

Add to that the 80+ Ft of 1.25" Iron pipe in the monoflow T system that acts as its own radiator with 130 F average temp water in it (in addition to all the 1/2" pipe running to and from radiators). I did add 2" of beadboard years ago and framed the walls out and as a result the basement of the past several years could be downright tosty.

Of course, we recognized that the Vitoden 200 would not radiate squat; but I also figured that those 80+ feet of pipe would do OK.

So the last month we have had this great cold weather - with the monoflow T loop averaging 140F or better and the basement was warm at first, then OK, but now...

In the meantime - over the last month the frost line has been going down as we don't have that much snow on the ground (4-6"). It would not surpris me if the frost line is 3 ft down by now. So much of my outer basement wall is now ice cold (prior to my existing beadboard).

Today bright and sunny. Front windows are designed to let in all the Infared they can for solar gain. Outdoor temp goes up to near 20 F and my loop temperature drops to 100.

The basement is downright chilly.

Guess I'll need to install some baseboard downstairs as well for future years.

Coincedentially. I just happen to have a 3/4" supply and return tap with isolation valves in place if needed.

Now the only question is how many feet of baseboard. Figure I realistically need 10,000 Btu/Hr in the basement - and we should figure on about 95 F loop temperature.

So if anyone else is replacing the old basement radiant heat source with a new boiler with no radiant heat... you just might think of expanding the basement heating system (or installing one).

Perry

theprentice

as shoddy as this may sound we ran into a similar problem a few months ago. huge boiler in basement that radiated heat to the kitchen upstairs. after installing new boiler customer called back and said it was to cold in kitchen. we ended up putting radiator fins in between the joists in the basement and then covering them with cardboard for a heat space. not the prettiest i have ever seen but haven't had a call back since.

[Deleted User]

Why base board....

Why not radiant? Walls, ceilings, floors. You have lots of options and the comfort is incomparable.

Heck, I did a bi-directional radiant system in my own home this weekend with scrap! In 3 hours for a 144 square foot space!

I'd be willing to ship you some spare peices of PEX to get you started...

ME

hr

Slant Fin now has output tables

for low temperatures, not sure about 95F.

Here is my "add on" radiant ceiling. My wife refers to it as a broiler in our living room.

hot rod

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Perry_3

I appreciate the offer...

But I'm not going to do anything this winter yet.

Of course, you are right that there are other options. The floor is out. Too little head room now in my mind to add to it.

I'll think on what my other options are. When I'm ready well see about that "scrap."

Perry

Aaron Gibson

Insulation

This might sound like a simple answer, but what kind of insulation do you have? Concrete walls don't insulate that well, and if its an older home, I've seen daylight through spaces between rocks that you could throw a cat through. Some foam board might be easir and cheaper in the long run if thats part of the problem.

Home Depot Employee

No heat and humid too?

Perry, don't forget the dehumidifier too

To many times I witness after the monster boiler is removed and the chimney is sealed, the RH rises above acceptable levels. In some circumstances with old dwellings that had a cistern or dirt floors, mold has started.

Take away the radiant heat byproduct and the ventilation (draft hood and chimney) and install a sealed combustion high-efficiency boiler and its a whole new climate in the basement as you are discovering.

Perry_3

Installed Insulation and basement Humidity - & Timing.

Originally, it was bare concrete.

I did a home energy study - complete with blower door test and then proceded to caulk the leaks at the basement joist - and put up 2" beadboard against the concrete. Made a huge difference.

That is when the basement would get really tosty (with the bare concrete it was often cool).

The beedboad can breath a bit by itself and the beadboard joints are just friction loose so that it all breaths a bit to prevent water buildup and mold growth.

I have a dehumidifyer for the summer in the basement to keep it dry.

I did seal up the chimney this fall with the removal of the old boiler beasty... Also I finally sealed the large air gap arround the chimney as well. Previously I left it open to allow pleanty of fresh air to come down from the attic when I had both the boiler and hot water heater down there.

Now I have a sealed combustion unit (Vitodens 200 6-24).

I also note that the wall I finished where the boiler is mounted is 5.5" wide boards gapped about 1/8" apart. That it to allow the wall to breath so as not to trap moisture and create a mold growth situation. They guy who did the energy study was real insistant on that as he has been called in a number of times to where basement walls had been sealed and had mold start to grow.

Do have a great day folks.

I'll wait till I have another pot of gold handy to do more with the basement. Current committment has to deal with a diamond - and then a set of rings....and a trip to Key West (or some such) for a week or two. I guess that comes first this year. Hope you all understand.

Perry

bob_50

Perry

you didn't mention in your post if you removed the old "Crane"? If not just hook up those 3/4" lines to it and use it as a radiator. You know it matched the load in the basement. I think that would be the most ecological thing to do. Recycle.

Bernie Riddle_2

similar circumstance

Removed a 450 lb bangbang and replaced it with a mod con, basment is staying 8°+ degrees cooler than last year

Looking at adding a ceiling hung Hydo fan convector at the lower BST I run, to get a little warmth down there

Tombig_2

Baseboard

Some copper baseboards run at the same temp as the monoflow loop will work and be the simplest/cheapest.Here's some attractive baseboard from Hydronic Alternatives but not as much bang for the buck with no convection.

http://www.hydronicalternatives.com/html/radiantpanel.html

GW

HR

which Flir did you spring for? I have the "cheap" B1. I did a level 1 themographer class a year ago, neat stuff.

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GW

BB?

why not pop in a panel rad?

Once one acquires the taste for rads, it's hard to install BB!

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Mike T., Swampeast MO

Has this been all winter long or perhaps just the last month-and-a-half or so?

I realize were're separated by a few hundred miles and in different general climates, but my basement has been unusually cold (dipping down to 42F) in the last few weeks. Third season with Vitodens but 6th with nicely insulated piping and it's NEVER been this cold in the basement.

Relative humidity has plummeted as well as temp. Down to 40% in the basement and <30% in the rest of the house. Don't believe I've ever measured basement RH so low--50% @ about 50+F is more the winter norm. Have actually run my forced air heat "boost" a few times even though the measured air temp is what I consider both normal and usually comfortable.

By overall degree days for the <I>season, I suspect this year will be quite "average"...

Uni R_3

Congrats

Congrats on your big news.

If you aren't too certain about what you need in the way of heat for the basement, you might want to try a couple of 1,500 watt 3 temp heaters. That'll give you the true equivalent of 10 MBU and then you can try different placements and different temp settings and get a pretty accurate idea of how much heat you really need. Then look at your water temps and get some matching HWBB for downstairs and feed it with monoflo-Ts at each end of the drops.

Your ΔT is probably pretty low already because of the flow for of the monoflo. I doubt that it would matter that much where you took those BTUs out... but if in doubt you can take the them first or last or both. If the heat added there can be kept in balance with the rest of the system you can save yourself a zone and leverage your monoflo system.

Perry_3

You are correct about the delta T

My current monoflow T loop temperature drop is fairly low. One advantage of that is that all the radiators in the house are fairly close to the same temperature and the house heats a bit more evenly (noticable on the return side of the house).

Concerning my addition for the basement heating system:

I have a pair of 3/4" valved stubs that are in a "first off" (before the first monoflow t) and "last in" (after the last monoflow T return). As such - it has full system pressure drop to run whatever I put in.

I figured that this would also be a perfect application for a TRV in the basement. While I did not want to retrofit TRV's on my baseboard due to lack of room to make it look nice (and the mess I'd create if things did not come appart easy) - there is no reason not to use one (or two) as necessary for a new set of radiators in the basement.

On the other subject. Don't know the exact timing yet.

Perry

Perry

Perry_3

Actualy, just the last couple of days...

Mike:

The basement was OK during the fall; and it was OK when it was really cold out initially (once I set the Vitodens 200 so that it wasn't limited on output temp) as the circulation of 150 F water through the black iron pipe radiated a fair amount of heat.

Now my loop temperature is about 90 F and that black iron pipe does not radiate much heat at all (not like it did when the water was 150 F).

The temperature had been dropping off some in the last several weeks; but is really noticable now that the outdoor temp has gone up and the loop temperatures have dropped again.

I attribute the change largly to the fact that the ground and cement wall was probably at about 50 F at the start of the winter, and now much of it is proably at 32F or colder as the frost line goes down.

It really would not take that much heat to make up the difference. I just need radiators that can do it at low system loop temperatures.

Something for the future. I do have an existing 3/4 line that can be used for that.

Perry

zeke

quote"Some copper baseboards run at the same temp as the monoflow loop will work and be the simplest/cheapest.Here's some attractive baseboard from Hydronic Alternatives but not as much bang for the buck with no convection."
---------------------------------------------
Tombig,
They don't tell you but all of these baseboard heaters put out about 1.2 BTU/HR per square foot of surface in radiation and about 1 BTU/HR per sq foot in convection . So you see, about 1/2 of the heating is radiation and 1/2 is convection. They know it, but I guess they are more marketable if they they don't mention convection. In actual practice for baseboard heating it makes very little difference, but I think, for ceiling "radiators", it makes a big difference, since the convecion causes stratification of some of the heat, leaving higher temperature there.

zeke

quote"If you aren't too certain about what you need in the way of heat for the basement, you might want to try a couple of 1,500 watt 3 temp heaters. That'll give you the true equivalent of 10 MBU and then you can try different placements and different temp settings and get a pretty accurate idea of how much heat you really need. Then look at your water temps and get some matching HWBB for downstairs and feed it with monoflo-Ts at each end of the drops.
--------------------------------------------------------
You have to be careful here, a 1500watt heater does NOT put ou 1500 watts continuously. That number shows the max it delivers to heat up the housing and internal fluid. The output is limited by the unit's limit on the surface temperature or the internal wiring temp limits which are built into the design.
For example, if the total emitting surface area were 2 square feet and the surface limit temp is, say 180, then the actual heat output by my calcs for a room temp of 70 is
2*(180-70)*2.2= 484 BTUH. There is no decimal error there.
The 2.2 value are conductances for radiation(1.2) and convection(1).
or only about 1/10 of the advertised 1500W (5000BTUH)

ALH_4

question

I'm not sure I follow the math there. Are you saying that if you had a horzontal radiant electric heater with a surface area of 2sf and a surface temperarure of 180°F you would get 484btu/h output?

All of the electricity that the heater uses is converted to heat. Seems like a meter on the power supply would give the best indication of output. If it was me, I would even be satisfied with an instantaneous measurement of current and voltage to estimate the real output over time.

Uni R_3

Zeke

I'm talking about a simple resistance heater with a fan - basically a toaster with a blower and a thermostat. They sell these nearly everywhere for $30-40. It's either off or on.

Are you talking about a different kind of heater?

I used 2 small 1500 watt heaters last fall quite often and my utility bills clearly reflect that. My watt meter shows one normally consumes 1500 watts and the other 1425 watts - that's close enough to 5K each for me thanks.

Uni R_3

Huh?

"You have to be careful here, a 1500watt heater does NOT put out 1500 watts continuously."

Ummm... actually they do. I use a watt meter so I can be quite sure about that.

I'm not sure what internal fluids you are talking about. I'm talking the simplest $20-40 fan blown electrical resistance convection heaters.

zeke

maximum heat from electric heater

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. The max temp on the surface is limited (or should be) by the highest temp the mfr is willing to let it go (to avoid lawsuits for scalding) or the highest temp allowed at the heating wire elements.
I chose 180 as a limt on the surface just as an example. It is well known that the convective coefficient is 1 BTU/HR/FT^2/deg F. What is not so well known is the radiative coefficient is derived from the Stefan- Botzmann radiation law which is
0.173*[(T1/100)^4-(T2/100)^4]/(T1-T2)*e
T1,T2 in deg Rankine(deg F+460)
e= emissivity
which comes to about 1.39, for e=1. So the total conductance is about 2.4 for T1=180+460 and T2=70+460, assuming a black body (e=1) on the surface.
Again the mfr claim to the high wattage 1.5 KW is based on the maximum amount of power that is generated BEFORE the limiting temps I mentioned reduce it, and remarkably, in this case by a factor of 10.

Uni R_3

Theory vs Reality

Zeke, try and run a pair of them on a single 15 amp circuit - the breaker will pop within seconds.

I have a couple of them that I used this past fall. I also have a watt meter that has confirmed the wattages at Fan/Lo/Med/Hi. I've also had a couple of very large electrical bills recently.

They were each about $140 higher for the Oct/Nov and Dec/Jan billing periods. So here's some simpler math. There were 2 heaters on for parts of those 2 2-month periods. Both were on a setting closer to 1000 watts than 1500 watts and used only part of each billing period. If they were only consuming 300 watts then the 2 heaters combined would have needed 13 weeks to use the additional KWHs during each of those 8 week billing periods. At 1000 watts each and just under 10¢/KWH, that's equivalent to around 1 week each which actually matches the reality of what happened.

If litigation is such an overriding factor, then why would any mfr risk getting sued for making misleading claims?

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Zeke, if you aren't convinced you should start a new thread.

zeke

Uni R,

Thanks for your persistence.Pactice vs theory. Practice wins, but with a caveat.

As you suggested, I ran a test on a deLongi oilfilled electric heater(I rarely use) and on 1.5KW setting and there is good news and bad news for the results. The good news is that the mfr does put out the 1.5KW as advertised and the bad news will follow.

RESULTS:

I only got out 1.100KW which was expected because my line voltage was only 105V. I measured the effective surface area and it was 5ft^2. The room was at 70. To my surprise, the surface temp varied from 300 to 230 degrees, so apparently, the mfrs have no interest in a safe surface temperature as I had surmised. So if the heater surface is somehow blocked for airflow, that means the temp could soar to dangerous levels and possibly cause a fire (remember paper burns at 450F). Accordingly, one should never use it near small children, unattended, and not near anything reasonably flammable like drapes, etc.; for that reason and use it only as a last resort. [ If you must use it in a bedroom while sleeping, keep one eye open for surveillance]

Now,as for my theoetical model: it limited the surface temp to 180 for a panel 1Ft^2 ; my results are fairly accurate and are borne out by hot water baseboard heater specs for panels about 1 square foot. Had I done the calculation for the heater I tested, the 5ft^2 would have developed an average surface temperature of about 340 degrees ( ouch) to put out the 5000BTUH which is equivalent to 1.5KW specified.

Uni R_3

FakeHydronics vs ToasterWithBlower

I see what you were saying.

Too fancy for this application. Perry just needs the $19 el-cheapo toaster wires with a fan 5 MBH heat source. They're handy to have around if they can run quietly enough. If you ever want to temporarily boost the heat in a single room they're cheaper than raising the temps in the whole house. Ideally it should go down to 500 or 600 watts and that's a good match with any normal sized room.

Perry_3

Hairdryers

Nah...

You guys make it to complicated. A Hairdryer or two ought to do the trick.... They come complete with built in fans and a low and high setting.

Of course, I havn't used one in years.... But I'm sure that I have a couple in some of my boxes downstairs... somewhere.

I think they are 1200 watts or so... Piece of cake. I probably should have thought of that before spending in excess of 15K on a new boiler instalation (complete with relocation).

Perry