steam or hot water?

mark ransley

Steam is about 83% efficent at best for a house, a condensing boiler to heat water go to around 96% efficency.

[Deleted User]

Steam or hot water

In today's ever changing economy, which is the better route for heating a home? Steam heat or hot water heat? Both would be fueled by natural gas.

nicholas bonham-carter

steam or hot water

another plus with water would be the ability to shut off or turn down the heat in unused areas whenever you want.
you also could have part of the heat coming from geothermal sources [when that would be more efficient than gas]--nbc

Steamhead (in transit)

On the other hand

steam has a few advantages:

1. The radiators and most of the piping drain completely dry when the system is off. This means there is much less danger of freezing damage in an extended power or fuel failure. The only parts of a steam system that normally stay filled are the wet returns in the basement, and the boiler itself. Yes, you can use glycol in a hot-water system, but that opens up a whole 'nother can of worms.

2. Since a given size radiator (or convector, baseboard, whatever) can emit more heat when fed with steam rather than hot water, your heat emitters in the rooms can be smaller.

3. Moving parts in any system are possible points of failure. In a typical home of 3-4 bedrooms or so, it is possible to build a steam system that has only two moving parts (other than those found on the boiler itself), and both of these are in the basement. With this system, there is nothing in the rooms to break.

4. You can zone a steam system room-by-room if you wish, using thermostatic radiator valves. This does, however, increase the number of moving parts, but this would also occur in a hot-water system.

Also bear in mind that you can't just vent a mod-con hot-water boiler anywhere you like. Depending on where you live, you might not be able to come out of the wall high enough to keep the intake and exhaust above the highest recorded snow accumulation. It might be possible to use an old chimney as a chase for a mod-con's intake and exhaust pipes, as long as there is nothing else venting into the chimney AND you don't exceed the maximum developed pipe length.

With any system, proper sizing is key. If you can, tighten up the building to the fullest extent- insulation, windows/doors, weatherstripping, caulk, etc. If this is done before the new heating system is designed, everything in the system can be smaller and it will use less fuel. Ask me how I know that........ ;-)

"Steamhead"

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"