radiant snow melt

Matt_70

I know it's impossible to give me exact numbers here without being on the job site, but I'm hoping someone could give me some general ideas and guidelines. 

I currently have a 140,000 btu crown boiler in my house that feeds hot water baseboards.  Hot water is made through a seperate 75gal a o smith hot water heater.  I want to put in radiant snow melting this summer - I can't stand shoveling anymore!!  The house, including finished basement, has 4500 sq ft. of living space.  Driveway, walkway, and sidewalk apron is another  1900 sq ft give or take.  House is located in the NYC area.  I have a very small boiler room located on the first floor of the house (on the same side of my house as the driveway luckily).  1" gas line coming into the boiler room which is then reduced down to feed the boiler and hot water heater. I also am planning on coverting much of the interior of the house to radiant floor heating - starting with a small bathroom in a few months then adding on to the system little by little. 



With all that being said, I'm curious what the pros here would suggest?  I spoke with two differnt boiler guys and two completely different answers.  I'm not opposed to changing everything, but one guy tells me I need another boiler to do the snow melting, and one tells me there is an upgrade kit for my crown boiler to increase the btus, and that would be fine to handle both inside and outside.  One guy also mentioned changing out the hot water tank (which is only 2 years old) to an indirect hot water system.  Hot water demand is pretty high in the house as I have one of those big soaking tubs in the master, two kids, and my in-laws living in the basement apt. 



I know this is a lot to ask but if anyone has some suggestions I would love to hear them..  I just want to have as much info as possible to help me determine which company to go with..  With my limited understanding of all the new stuff out there, I was thinking (hoping) I could get one wall hung boiler that would do snow melting, hot water baseboards and/or radiant heat, as well as feed an indirect hot water tank.  Too much to ask for???



thank you!

NRT_Rob

1900 square feet of snowmelt

is at least 200,000 BTUs/hr of output required and really should be more like 250,000 BTUs/hr.



That's a dedicated boiler. adding that kind of size to your heating boiler will cripple its efficiency, unless you want to add a nice buffer tank. would make a nice domestic generating boiler though.



So I'd do a big boy for the snowmelt/DHW maybe, and a much smaller boiler for heating, most likely. You *probably* don't need more than 100k for heating unless the house is leaky or something.