zone control

lorenzonine

Are there vent / valves available which are controllable by an area thermostat? The Unitarian Church of Marlboro and Hudson has recently had a Burnham Boiler installed and now we're searching for a way to "automatically" control steam supply to a 9 radiator single pipe main sanctuary ( which would be OFF most of the time ) AND 6 (?) radiators in our "basement" Union Hall ( fed from same mains as sanctuary but a TWO pipe system which also carries the return condensate from the Sanctuary radiators ). A volunteer has been operating valves and vents so we're not heating the main sanctuary every time the Union Hall thermostat calls for heat but he is no longer available and there is none to replace him.

Jamie Hall

The answer is yes

and there are several possible ways to do it.



The most elegant solution would be to split the mains, so you had one for the sanctuary and one of the Union Hall, and then put thermostatically controlled valves on them (the valves have to be the same size as the main, called "full port" valves).  Either thermostat would call the boiler, but the valves would respond only to their own thermostat.  This solution is, as I say, elegant -- but it would be expensive, I'm afraid.



A slightly less elegant solution would be to use thermostatically controlled radiator vents on the sanctuary radiators -- but you would need one on each radiator, and someone would have to crank them all up when you needed the heat, which would be a bit of a bore.



I'm sure some of the other folks will come up with other solutions...