Heat loss masonry house recessed, castiron, BB HW Ht

Patrick \"Brick House\" Lynn

I have a 1200 square foot, 1951, cinder-block house with a brick facade and cement-on-half-inch-drywall interior (See attached). I recently installed a Dunkirk, PWX-4E (81.5%)
AFUE gas-fired water boiler to heat the cast-iron baseboard radiators.

My heating bill continues to be relatively high (about $330 for most of the winter) and that is mostly gas that, in turn, is mostly to fire the boiler. The gas/electric bill is about $150 in the summer when I run a window air conditioner.

While there are other areas loosing heat, I believe a major contributor is the recessed, cast-iron, baseboard radiators. In my opinion, recessing the radiators reduces there ability to circulate and, thus, radiate heat and placing them directly against the cinder block, instead out just a little from the interior wall, causes the heat to be drawn outside.

I spoke with a J. Beers at MG&E and he suggested I post my quandary here to learn if a reader might be of assistance.

With wood floors and a new boiler, my initial thought was to install in-floor heat [from the basement]. I believe Gary from Dunkirk suggested this when they installed the boiler. I was probably too dumb to agree at the time.

Mr. Beers suggested placing reflective, paper-type insulation behind the radiator to reflect more heat into the living space.

I was also considering installing fireplace insert.

Thank you for your time and assistance.

Patrick

jp_2

Hmmm

they do not look 'that' recessed? looks like you can get reasonable air flow from bottom and out the vents.

gas bill doesn't sound too high considering you have no insulation in the house.

insulation behind the rads would help, but little compared to the rest of the house having none.

of course I do not know your climate, so really hard to tell if $330 a month is good or bad?