Expanding Steam into the rest of the house

Unknown

How many BTU is the forced air furnace that now heats the room? If it can't heat the room to more than 55F on a cold day, at least you will know that you need more than that additional BTU capacity from your main system.

I would guess that you dont have that much additional capacity available. You might be able to add a couple of radiators to supplement the forced air system and bring up the room temperature to the desired level.

Jerry Withers

Extending Steam into the rest of the house

Hi everyone,

I have an 800 square foot extension we call the "Ballroom" into which I am considering extending the steam heat into from the rest of the house.

The room in question has a separate forced air furnace, but after trying to use it the first winter we moved in, I vowed never again. It was not able to get the room above 55 degrees on a normal cold winter day. It has 13 foot ceilings and multiple french doors to the outside, so I am sure the heat loss of this room is pretty bad.

Anyway, in trying to gauge if I even can extend the steam out to this room. I calculated the total EDR and BTU usage of my current steam system and this is what I came up with.

I have 13 radiators with a total EDR of 590 requiring 141,765 BTU's of steam to heat all of them (which we never really do.). This was for the radiators only. I did not calulate anthing yet for piping.

I have a Pennco boiler 1608HSID which has a net IBR rating of 161 and 671 Sq. Ft. of net radiation.

I ordered the EDR book. Until then I used http://www.colonialsupply.com/resources/radiator3.htm to do the calculations.

I have 2 radiators in storage one with a EDR of 52 and the other with 84.

So here are my questions?

How much EDR would I really need to heat that room?

Would I need a bigger boiler?

Can I make it work by downsizing some of my current radiators and shift the load?

Is a hot water zone an option for me?

I would rather run just one boiler that have something seperate for that room.

Any ideas/comments are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Jerry Withers

I am not sure of how many BTUS the force air furnace has, but based upon the fact that the air that comes out of the ducts never really was warm at all I doubt that it really matters how many it has. I would be surprised if it had a 40% efficiency.

Jamie Hall

First thing to do...

is to calculate the heat loss of that room! There are calculators available for finding the heating loss. While you're at it, you might check that the doors particularly are reasonably good -- double glazed? Thermopane? Also, look into adding -- if you haven't already -- a ceiling fan to get some of the warm air down to where it benefits you, not visiting NBA players!

Once you've done that, you can figure what the equivalent EDR is, and figure what sort of radiators you need in the room. That's pretty straightforward.

Then... add that to the known EDR of the rest of the house, and see if the boiler can do the job. If not, you'll need a bigger boiler... sorry about that.

Jerry Withers

The windows are single pane. The doors need to be replaced. I do have 4 ceiling fans int he room to push down heat. the main problem with the force air furnace is that it did not really put any heat into the room at all. The air was cold by the time it got to the registers.

scrook_2

Might just be leaky duct joints or uninsulated ducts if the air's cool, or could be the burner (also gas fired?) may be under firing.

steve_196

furnace

When you said the air doesn't come out of the registers warm, you should be looking at the gas manifold pressure and temp. rise. You just may need to correct the furnace condition for comfort.

Jerry Withers

That would mean repairing the furnace, which is something I really do not want to do. I do not really want to run a boiler AND a furnace.

I have not run the thing at all in 3 years.

Steamhead (in transit)

Jerry, we've done this

had to replace the boiler, but they got one that was much more efficient. Go here:

http://forums.invision.net/Thread.cfm?CFApp=2&Thread_ID=58864&mc=8

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Jerry Withers

From what I can calculate it seems the heat lost of that room alone is about 20,000 BTU an hour as it currently stands.

heatguy

i would not try to heat this space with same boiler unless you put hot water type heat baseboard ,radiant,radiant panels .the reason i say this is your heatloss in this space is very much different then the rest of the house if you try to heat it with steam you lose the value of having a seperate operating control to heat your high heat loss space. you can install componets on exsisting boiler and have a much more comfortable space.

Jerry Withers

That was one of the things I was wondering. I am open to a hot water zone for this room. Taking 1/3 of the 161k BTUs for a Hot water zone would leave me with 54K BTU for the Hot water zone. That sounds like it should be enough to heat that room.

As for the heat loss difference between this room and the rest of the house I kinda have that covered by using thermostatic radiator values in the old part of the house that would prevent it from overheating when trying to heat this big room.

Sad thing is there is not a plocal contractor within 100 miles that knows steam.

Steamhead (in transit)

Where

are you located?

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Jerry Withers

I am in Waterloo, NY in the middle of the fingerlakes.

Here a google maps link.

If you go to street view you can see my house.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=115+E+Main+St,+Waterloo,+NY+13165&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=49.223579,77.958984&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=16&iwloc=addr