New to rads-- seperate controls for basement apt?

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Are these iron radiators? panels? If panels, do the adjustment valves have a scale? If so, you probably have TRVs.

Are there already rads in the basement? If so, do they heat the basement well relative to the other floors? If so, then you might need to do nothing other than you and your tenant arriving at an acceptable, shared thermostat setting/schedule.

If the basement overheats relative to the ground floor then TRVs will be ideal on the basement rads. Just be aware that this will NOT allow the basement to make a call to the boiler for heat. In other words, if you turn down the main thermostat, the basement will not be able to make the boiler fire.

If the basement underheats relative to the ground floor things get more complicated. Is this the case?

Sean_30

Creating zones in a hydronic system

Hi, I just bought an ~80 year-old, 3 floor + basement, detached brick house in Toronto with what seems to be a new gas boiler and water radiators throughout.

I'm used to forced air and knew how to simply control the heat distribution (close/ cover the vents) but with hydronic, can I:
- stop heat to a little-used upstairs room? AND
- for the basement, which we rent out, can I give the tenant a seperate control of his heat vs. constantly relying on me setting the thermostat upstairs? Is there a small tankless unit I could have installed to run his hot water and his heat?

Thanks for any help or direction!
Sean.

ALH_4

TRV's

If I was in your position, I would install thermostatic radiator valves on every radiator in the house along with Tekmar 260 outdoor reset control on the boiler. If the boiler does not heat your domestic hot water, a tekmar 256 would be the appropriate control. After installation of the thermostatic radiator valves, each radiator would essentially have it's own thermostat. This will save fuel as you can lower the temperature in infrequently used rooms without turning the heat completely off, and the Tekmar control will only fire the boiler as hot as necessary. The thermostatic radiator valves will also provide more even heat because they control the flow through each radiator proportionally to the temperature in the room.

Sean_30

That's very helpful. Are there TRVs that are hooked into thermostats so you can do zoned heating all at the thermostat? From what I can read of these things off the web, I'd need to manually go around and adjust them. Let me know. Thanks!

jp_2

not really

thats the advantage of the trv, you can adjust every radiator on its own. sitting rooms a little warmer, sleeping areas a little cooler.

ALH_4

TRV's

Usually TRV's are set to the desired temeprature and then left alone. If a room is typically used one day a week, it is probably easiest to leave the room at a comfortable temperature than to turn it down when unoccupied. That is one weakness of TRV's. TRV's are generally not used for temperature setback of individual zones. However, global setback of the boiler water temperature can be used during unoccupied periods in order to save fuel if an outdoor reset control is used.

You can install electric operators on the radiator valves, but then there is the problem of how to hide the wiring and how to get 24v to the operator. You could mix and match electric and thermostatic operators, but the wiring will always be an issue in a retrofit. For that reason, I would lean toward thermostatic valves.