Adding another zone

DH123

I've got a forced hot water system see picture.
I live in VT where the winters can be cold (no very cold). My house could benefit from
more insulation throughout but that's not happening anytime soon so to try and keep my mud room warm
I've decided to break my down stairs into two zones. When it's -20F I feel as though the temp
drop is great enough in the main house that by the time the water gets to the mud room it never really
warms up the space. I have 8' x 3/4" of slant fin in the mud room today and that is supposed to be sufficient.
By the way the mud room is insulated pretty well. The mud rooms temperature does
fine when the outside temperature is above 25F.

I'm leaning toward expanding my existing calculator system over converting to a zone system with one
calculator which could save on electric cost. I've decided to stick with what I've got because it looks like it would take
me 4-5 years to recognize the savings and I'm not sure I'll be living here in 5 years.

So my plan is to expand my existing 2" Black Iron manifold to accommodate potentially 6 calculators. I presently have
(4) circulars 3 for heat and (1) for a Hot water. I'm going to expand to 6 because the relay control I need to purchase has 6 potential circuits and I'd like to deal with the (2) cast iron radiators in my daughters rooms at the same
time. Presently they are feed by 1/2" pipe off a monoflow T.

My questions:
Do I create a separate zone for these radiators which are piped with 1/2" ?
Do I rip out the radiators and put 3/4" baseboard in their rooms (All on it's own zone)?
If I end up taking the radiators out ( they put out a ton of heat) could I place them in my mud room?
What would the mud room design with the radiators look like? would they be feed off a T or built
in series with the new zone?

Thanks,
Jim

Big Ed_4

Stay with the same radiators in the rest of the house,,, Radiators are med temperature 120-160 and baseboard is high temperature.160-200

Big Ed_4

or use panel radiators instead of baseboard , you will like

DH123

Thanks Big ED.

So if the rest of my house is baseboard are you saying remove the (2) radiators in my daughters rooms and go with all baseboard.

Jim

Brewbeer

If they heat fine keep the radiators.
If you can move the mud room baseboard to the beginning of the loop, that will give more heat. Or, you could replace the mudroom baseboard with baseboard that is higher output/emits more heat, and/or add more baseboard to the mudroom.

DH123

I'd like to leave the radiators in my daughters rooms. They are
plumbed with 1/2" copper, I'd like to get them on there own zone
would this mean running new 3/4" to each or is the 1/2" sufficient.

Brewbeer

Depends on the total equivalent length of pipe in the loop.

Rich_49

How many of these circuits are mono flo ?

The piece of baseboard in the mudroom is the last piece on a series loop or monoflo ?

What is the approximate heat load for the house at very low temps ?

You mentioned possibly using one circulator ? I don't understand what is stopping you . Those circs use about 3xs as much energy as an ECM , one for one is not an impressive savings but 4 - 5 to 1 can be impressive . You do not need to split a zone either , you could simply use a manifold and run 1/2" pex to each emitter , even throughout the whole house . zoning can still be accomplished using actuators on the manifold .

My little avatar shows a manifold with one circ and a manifold which is multiple zones . When you do this all the emitters receive the same temp water and you do not suffer declining temps .

DH123

I've attached 2 drawings of what I have.

I think my issues has to do with removing the radiators from the existing zone and trying to deal with them on there own.

I'm not familiar with actuators, so I googled them. It appears
as though they work like a switch either NO/NC allowing hot water to flow. If this is how they work I've got a couple questions.
Will I require some type of mixing valve to get the water that feeds the manifold temperature down in the 120-160 range.

I'm assuming I'd need some type of thermostat to tell the calculator to start/ stop or how would that work?

Jamie Hall

Unless I'm really missing something, I like the basic idea of your diagram with the two zones -- except that instead of going with two circulators, I'd tie that new return into the existing return right after the kick heater and let the one circulator do all the work. If you want to control the two zones separately, then just put zone valves on each one and control them with two strategically located thermostats. The end switches on the zone valves would be wired in parallel and control the boiler and circulator.

Don't repipe the kids' radiators.