Upcoming Home Remodeling / adding to steam system

lizardguy

Ok here goes, all input is much appreciated..

I have an undormered cape cod style house, 2 bedrooms upstairs, 2 downstairs. As of right now the house is about 1400 sq/ft roughly. Currently have 1 large radiator in living room, 1 large radiator in kitchen/dining area, 1 radiator in each of the four bedrooms totaling 6 radiators. Converted to gas 2 years ago and installed brand new burnham IN5 boiler that im not sure what btu you count for when sizing, input btu140000? Output 11500? Or is it 86000? Anyway i know even at 86k btu im pretty oversized for current house.

Now the part where i need help....

We are dormering the house, putting all 4 bedrooms upstairs and 1 bathroom and will total be a shade under 2000 sqft. I think sizewise the boiler should still be ok but how do i handle the heating of the 2 new bedrooms upstairs and associated piping to tie into my existing 1 pipe system? Ive seen the steam baseboard that us boiler makes, would that be a road to go down? I cant be the only person to have this issue come up, builder is trying to tell me that i have to scrap my steam system all together and put in hot water boiler and baseboard. Id rather not do this. I like the stram system, i pulled my hair out for months to get it right and now i love it, not to mention i just went for $10k two years ago to install it.

Please give any advice and input on achieving this,

Steamhead

Well, if the builder wants to sell you a whole new heating system, fire him. He deserves it.

Then have a Steam Man look at your job. Here's a link to a thread where we added to a steam system- the second time it's been done in that house. It works perfectly. And yes, the builder tried to talk the owners out of it...............

http://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/151513/lets-start-the-new-wall-off-properly

wcs5050

Burnham/US boiler Baseray 9A is suitable for steam. Others may know about sizing pipe supplies/system to feed new upper floor radiation. Getting someone to design/install supply piping system is going to be the challenge here. Sizing element/baseboard radiator for room is critical as well.
GC can get probably get someone to do forced hot water a lot easier than he can get someone to do a steam system extension.
http://www.usboiler.net/product/baseray-baseboard-radiator.html
Looks like 860 BTU per linear foot (?) Each new room would need heat loss calc to size element.

Dave0176

wcs5050 said:

Burnham/US boiler Baseray 9A is suitable for steam. Others may know about sizing pipe supplies/system to feed new upper floor radiation. Getting someone to design/install supply piping system is going to be the challenge here. Sizing element/baseboard radiator for room is critical as well.
GC can get probably get someone to do forced hot water a lot easier than he can get someone to do a steam system extension.
http://www.usboiler.net/product/baseray-baseboard-radiator.html
Looks like 860 BTU per linear foot (?) Each new room would need heat loss calc to size element.

You will however with the baseray or any baseboard, have to run two pipe with the return pipe dripping back into the basement into a wet return or back up into the main.

If the house is going to be under construction to that point running one pipe steam to modern slenderized radiators will not be a problem. Just do a good heatloss to size the radiators properly.

jumper

When adding radiators,why not try two pipe? They are easier to control. And you won't add condensate load to riser.