How to heat kitchen addition?

ScottMP

Think outside the box..

Scott

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coffeeman

I am looking for advise on how to handle heating my kitchen. We are remodeling and bumping out the kitchen about 8 feet. We have a one pipe steam system which we are keeping. The radiator in the kitchen sits smack in the center of the room and is enclosed in a penninsula. Different alternatives posed by the contractor for heating just the kitchen and bumped out space are A)radiant off a hot water heater B)Moving the existing radiator against the wall using up valuable cabinet space and C)kick space heaters off a hot water heater.
Is there a better option not mentioned and/or which one of these makes the most sense? Thank you and sorry for writing a novel.

Timco

you can take a HW zone off of a steam boiler, but it takes a pro to do it. Dan wrote an article on this. Then you could have the kickspace unit. I like wall rads or panel rads for this. Steamhead would know best how to do this...

Tim

Mad Dog_2

If you are going with Tile....you have NO choice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Radiant. Mad dOG

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ScottMP

exactomundo !!

You will be the happiest with the results if you go Radiant.

Any other option and you will foreever sit in your kitchen and say " we should have done the radiant"

Scott

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coffeeman

Thanks so much for the quick responses. You guys rule. The floor in this area will be wood as opposed to tile. Based on that do you guys still think radiant would be the clear cut winner over kick space units or relocating the radiator?

Bob Gagnon plumbing and heating

happiest

You would be happiest if you went radiant, with radiant under the counters, if they are granite.

Thanks, Bob Gagnon

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coffeeman

Thank you again for all of the information. Looks like radiant is the winner.

Steamhead (in transit)

It's also

the most complicated solution, by far.

Check with the vendor of the radiant products you will use. You may find they don't like their gear being supplied with water from a steam boiler, which is a bit nastier than you find in a hot-water system. This means you'll need a heat exchanger, expansion tank, second circulator and a few other goodies for the hot-water loop.

You may also find that there won't be enough floor area for radiant to supply all the heat the room needs. So you would need something in addition to the radiant. The only way to determine this is to do a heat-loss calculation using a radiant-oriented program.

I have yet to meet a kitchen designer who knows anything about keeping the room warm. They seem to be primarily interested in selling as many cabinets as they can. When we ask homeowners if any rooms are too hot or cold, we find a lot of cold kitchens- then discover they tried to make a toe-kicker do the work of a large radiator..... "oh, they took the radiator out when we remodeled the kitchen"..... and if the toe-kicker stops working we then have to rip the cabinet apart to get to it, since no one thought to leave an access opening.

If that were my house, I'd tell the designer "We WILL have a radiator in this room". He or she would have to make do with a lesser commission. Or I'd find someone else.

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ScottMP

And sometime Frank

adding a steam radaitor eight feet out into a bumped ut kitchen can be the most complicated.

How about heating up the rest of the house just to get a kitchen warm in the morning ?

A access panel in a cabinet ( while I do HATE toespace heaters ) is not a tough thing to have.

There are options.

Scott

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coffeeman

Based on what Steamhead and Scott are saying does the following sound like an option: Leave the radiator right where it is and incorporate it into the island cabinetry then use kickspace to take care of the new bumped out space. Radiator will not be in ideal spot but this would eliminate headache of moving it to new space. Or radiant? Or heavy clothing? Thanks Again

Bob Gagnon plumbing and heating

Why not heat your counters??

I know nobody's doing it this way, but that's not a reason. I have done a few that way and the customers love it. It doesn't get hot, only warm like the floors, around 75 to 80 degrees. You won't have to wear a sweater, you won't have to have a big old radiator in your new kitchen, you won't have to heat your whole house to heat you kitchen, you won't need any supplemental heat no matter how many cabinets you get, you won't have any dust or noise or maintenance issues like with a kickspace heater. Heat losses are practically eliminated because any downward heat loss is still in the heated envelope, and the heat will travel better through a granite counter than the floors because there is no wood holding it back. It may also be the least expensive option, I simply tie my counters into the manifold for the floor system, so when the thermostat calls for heat in the kitchen, the floors and counters get warm, it's that simple and it will last as long as your radiant system. From a heating standpoint a slab of granite spread throughout your kitchen is the best heat emitter you could buy. But the customer is already buying it.

Thanks, Bob Gagnon

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Steamhead (in transit)

If the heat-loss calculation

shows the existing radiator can handle the new load, you're all set- no changes are needed. If the bumped-out area is well insulated, and the original kitchen wall was not, this may be the case. They did do a heat-loss calc, right? If not, have it done, or do it yourself using the free Slant/Fin program you can download here (order the CD if you still use dial-up, it's a heavy download):

http://slantfin.com/heat-loss-software.html

If the existing radiator is too small, find one that will handle the load and incorporate it.

You'll be much happier with a radiator than with a toe-kicker. You'll have fewer moving parts and less noise.

"Steamhead"

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ScottMP

unless the steam main

is so high that the run out won't allow proper pitch ??

Radiant !

Scott

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Steamhead (in transit)

Well, if you run into that

just pitch down to the riser and drip the riser's heel.

"There are options"................

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