adding a radiator

d0eby

i have an outdoor wood burner that heats the main floor, water at 190. it gets hot in the bedrooms, but the big open dining room doesn't get near as hot as the other rooms. it doesn't have radiators per say, just the copper pipe with little fins on them. Can i add an actual radiator in the big room, or will it effect the rest of the heating in the rooms. it is one big loop, the radiator would be at the end of the loop, its the last room on the run. the return temperature is only like 10 degrees less.

EBEBRATT-Ed

You can add more baseboard if your return is only 10 degrees less than the supply you should be ok.

Check inside your baseboard covers sometimes they use them for pipe enclosure only and you can add more finned element'

Baseboard will give you 600 btus /foot

d0eby

i figured with the temperature return i could add more, i guess my question is more can i have the copper pipe with fins in all the other rooms, but add a big cast iron radiator in the loop. i wouldn't think it should effect anything, but i was just making sure. How much head would be added to the pump with a cast iron radiator. radiator is about 8 feet long, and about 8 inches tall. 2 inches deep. from the 50's.

PC7060

I’m guessing little to none. The radiator will appear as a wide spot in the river with less resistance than the pipe it replaced. 

EBEBRATT-Ed

@d0eby

Putting cast iron on the same loop as fin tube baseboard isn't the best solution.

The reason is cast iron heats up slow but holds the heat longer. Fin tube heats up faster but cools faster so they sometime don't work well together. If you could put the CI on it's own zone it would be better