considering putting a radiator in the basement

maybemark

un heated

maybemark

then my heat loss is not as high a number than what I have?

maybemark

it sounds ,like I have much to many radiators

Gordy

To help you understand what kurt has laid out go down the third column. Any number to the corresponding room above 150 is under radiated. Any number below 150 is over radiated for the heat loss to the space it serves. This would be at design conditions.

The 150 is BTUs per SF of EDR rated at 170* AWT.

maybemark

but, since I didn't count the basement as having some heat, wouldn't this chage those numbers?
for the most part i am was or rateated, except my bedroom and front hall

maybemark

please answer this
the boiler that i purchsed, a whn085, will it heat my house ok?

SWEI

As Gordy mentioned: the system was almost certainly balanced when it was originally installed, who knows what kind of changes have been made since then, and none of us have actually seen the place. I would not worry about the WHN085 being too small.

The BTU per square foot number is a guide -- to sanity check the measurements and the assumptions. When we see a variance like that, it generally means we return to the job to look around a bit more carefully and perhaps ask a few questions. It doesn't mean we start ripping out or replacing radiators. Sometimes a bit of apparent imbalance turns out to be just a condition we did not think about -- like a room with solar gain or kitchen heat or convection from another space.

To wrap up what I started a couple of pages back: Your ground floor heat loss is roughly 50k, and should need somewhere between 3.5 and 5 GPM of flow maximum. If you put a radiator (or fin tube) in series with that, try to limit the added resistance to 1 or 2 feet of head.

maybemark

will a 15/58 fibe me that flow, or do i need another pump

SWEI

15-58 on low speed should be close, and you already own it.

maybemark

great, thank you very much

maybemark

swei
I appeciate you doing these calculations, but honestly, my anxioty went sky high, when i would ask a question, and not get the answer. This left me in a place, the unknown. this scares me, I keep asking, and more calculations come up, but my question is never answered. I hear my house is so out of balance, i don't know if this is good or bad. Then you leave.
Do you get off on scaring people with your knowledge, and then just leave them hanging?
then Corey was doinf the same thing to me
I have alot to learn, and helping is great, and appreciated

SWEI

maybemark said:

swei
I appeciate you doing these calculations, but honestly, my anxioty went sky high, when i would ask a question, and not get the answer. This left me in a place, the unknown. this scares me, I keep asking, and more calculations come up, but my question is never answered. I hear my house is so out of balance, i don't know if this is good or bad. Then you leave.

It's called going to sleep. Before that it was eating dinner.

Do you get off on scaring people with your knowledge, and then just leave them hanging?
then Corey was doinf the same thing to me

Nobody's doing anything to you here except trying to help you get your system working as well as it can.

j a_2

The answers you get here are very generic, some are just copied and pasted…some are not…The reason is ,the responder is not there to see the actual job….My thinking is you are over thinking this job…Many of your questions were answered, all of your questions are answered in Dans writings…The book How Come is great for homeowners like yourself….Read the books, ask questions, listen, and use common sense

maybemark

ja
no cooment
swei
thanks for your help

j a_2

No problem I was pretty much known for saying it as it is…like it or not was my thinking...

maybemark

ja
no comment

j a_2

understood…that will be that

maybemark

now what does that mean? and how is that helpful?

maybemark

I was never told, did i make a mistake on not counting the basement, when i calculated the heat loss?

maybemark

when it asked about the 1st floor floor, i put unheated area

maybemark

I guess i have to watch what i say on this site, it can ends up being held against me

maybemark

with the calculations that SWEI was nice of to do for me, I have more radiators than i actually need (this is what I am understanding) please correct me if i'm wrong. If this is true, my return water should be alot cooler than mt supply (which is a good thing?) Does this cause the boiler to work harder to heat more water for my system?

Gordy

no it makes the boiler run at higher efficiency with a mod/con boiler. The lower the better.

maybemark

thanks Gordy
it sounds like since my system is so out of balance, my boiler should be running at an extremly high effiency.

Getting back to my downdstairs radiator, i will have Fred pipe it as you say, in series with the kitchen radiator. It just so happends that kitchen radiator is the last radiator on the one run i have, it seems like it would be helpful for the efeciency piping it this way, but, will this cause the basement radiator to have little heat going to it?

RobG

I have forgotten more about this long thread than I can remember. That said, if you keep a tight reset curve on the system and pipe the basement rad in series with the kitchen rad it will not get as much heat as the kitchen rad. However, I think I recall you saying that you didn't want much heat in the basement anyway? As for balancing the system, no one who is not there can help you with that. If it heats well now, it should heat well with a properly installed modcon.

maybemark

Rob, thanks for the input.
Your close on your thinking.
it's not that I don't want much heat, I'll settle for less heat. right now my basement averages about 50 degrees down there. but it got alot of the heat from the old boiler, flue, and uninulsted pipes. Now I insulated the pipes, and the new boiler won't be giving off the heat like the existing one does. If I can get 50 degrees down there, this is what i am used too, if i get better, this will put a smile on my face.

maybemark

as far as the balancing goes, every radiator has a valve on it, some of the valves need to be replaces. We will be doing this, when the system is down for the replacement

Gordy

Just remember when you get n
The new install done I would start over with the balancing. Have all valves wide open, and do your fine tuning in small increments. Give the adjustments time to settle in a period of a few days. Try to do this when weather is consistent not big fluctuations in weather change. This may take all season to dial in.

SWEI

Can you put the basement radiator (or parallel fin-tube as I suggested earlier) directly over (or adjacent to) the area you want to work in? Radiant energy falls off with the inverse square law, so closer is warmer -- by a lot.

maybemark

thanks gordy
it wont be for 2 1/2 months until the instal, and swei and i had a discusion about the tuning. We didn't get into great detail

maybemark

hi swei
I have an extra cast iron radiator i was thinking of using, next to the laundry area, so, this would be too difficult to hang on the ceiling, but fin tube is another story, that would be easy, but, woudn't I be running low water temp, and doesn't fin tube need high temp?

maybemark

what about doing both?

maybemark

when Fred put in the branches for the new raidators he put in the kitchen, he used 3/4" copper, is this a problem? The radiators get very hot now.
when i bring the radiator to the basement, should the copper increase, or keep it at 3/4.
Or. do you feel it should be 1" upstairs?

SWEI

If it's working now, you are fine with 3/4" copper. Look at the GPM numbers I posted above.

Fin/tube works better at higher temps for sure, but scrap pieces can be useful in applications like this. Your "scrap" is a radiator, so put it to use.

maybemark

I can have it right next to the slop sink in the basement, nxt to the slop sink is the washer and dryer.
The 3/4 works fine now.
Being the basement, it shouldn't get too cold down there. Those are the only original windows in the house, in the basement. I do have storm windows on them, and I put visqueen on the inside, thinking more protection.
What gal per min rates amI look at?

SWEI

SWEI said:

51,000 BTU/hr would need 5.1 GPM at a 20˚F ΔT or 3.4 GPM at a 30˚F ΔT.

maybemark

I'm sorry to say, i don't understand this

maybemark

3.5 and 5 GPM of flow maximum. If you put a radiator (or fin tube) in series with that, try to limit the added resistance to 1 or 2 feet of head.
I wish I would understand everything you type, but I don't,

SWEI

If you pipe something in series with the zone, it will likely have 3.4 to 5.1 gallons per minute flowing through it.

maybemark

ok, is good?