Heat in the stairway?

D Murphy

I agree with Constantin. There is no rule that says you can't put extra length under the windows. If possible you might want to put radiation in the stairwell under that window, as anyone walking thru the stairwell will feel the cold. By the way is that a fireplace on the "south" side of that drawing? or is another window? If it was a fireplace did you figure in the heat loss of it? just some thoughts...

Dave_4

Take a look at the attached picture. The large common area of this floor of the house consists of the kitchen, greatroom, foyer, and stairway.

In doing the heat loss analysis, I did the whole area as one, there being no walls to separate anything. The heat loss is such that I cannot get enough from radiators under the large windows in the view wall, nor anything other than a noisy toekick in the kitchen. I would like to place some heat in the stairway, under the windows there.

Does this make sense? I thought that heating stairways and interior passage halls was not done.

Constantin

FWIW,

We put RFH under anything we could, bathtubs, hallways, etc. The only thing we didn't put RFH into were the actual stair treads themselves.

For this kind of project, you could consider the baseboard sold by hydronic alternatives. Gives you a good amount of heat right around the perimeter of the room w/o being too noticable.

Putting panel rads under windows is a classic way to combat the cold air "dripping" from them, the radiant cooling effect via the window in winter, and so on. However, I would not let a lack of windows get in the way of spreading the heat as much as possible throughout the house to ensure that it's even.

HTH?

Dale

nice drawing

You could add a panel rad at a higher temp under the windows if you don't mind running the primary loop higher than in floor needs.. Or, as I think Dave Yates does put the rads first in the loop and use the outlet temp to feed the tube, as long as you do the math correctly. Also the stairway can have wall radiant and ceiling radiant.

J.C.A._3

Just a reminder....

Hey Gene, You do know that you can install heat on an inside wall...right?

This looks like a good spot to make up the difference. My choice would also be panel radiators with TRV's and constant circulation, if it's a new install. JMHO. Chris

Bob Gagnon plumbing and heating

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Bob Gagnon plumbing and heating

heat the stairway

You are right Gene, I have done a few of them and they work great. Even if you add panel radiators that stairway would be a cold spot. Snake the pex back and forth in the same directions as the stairs and add ultra fins. The last one I did ran almost as warm as the regular floor heat. If you e-mail me I can send you a picture, for some reason I can't post pictures here. Bob Gagnon

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Dave_4

There's no radiant on this floor

All heat on the house level I showed in the pic is by either baseboard or panel rads. There will be no infloor tubing, and I am a little confused by your reference to snaking PEX and using ultrafins. Can you please clarify? A direct email with pics attached would be appreciated, if you cannot attach pics here at the Wall.