Electric panel radiators

Grallert

Good morning Wall. We are in the process of planning a partial renovation of one of our small dorm buildings. This building has 11 zones of hydronic baseboard. There are three resident apartments. The student dorms are laid out in such a way that one room will have a thermostat and a far room will has a zone valve. In this case the valves are tacos. All spread out and no easy access. Couple that with the fact that these room are occupied by teenage girls from all over the world and there will be conflicts over heat. I'm going to try something with one of the smaller zones, two rooms and abandon this one hydronic zone and install independent electric panels in each room giving the students control of their own space. These need to be up off the floor because of the way these kids pack there gear up against the convectors floor space is precious.
The trouble I'm having is finding electric wall panels. So far only one company pops up Runtal. I know Radson makes them put I'm not sure they import them. Any suggestions and thanks.
M

psb75

Do you have 11 zone valves and 11 thermostats? Your description needs some tweaking. It is a bit skeletal and needs some good "fleshing out."

Jamie Hall

psb75 said:

Do you have 11 zone valves and 11 thermostats? Your description needs some tweaking. It is a bit skeletal and needs some good "fleshing out."

I'm quite sure that is exactly what he means. The only question I'd have, @Grallert , is --in the interests of saving electricity -- is there a way that you can set it up so that the hydronic does the heavy lifting, say to 62 or so -- and the wall panels trim the heat as needed? Not sure how you'd keep the precious darlings from fiddling with the zone valve thermostats, but I dare say you could find a way...

hot_rod

I assume the students aren't paying the electric bill . Aren the wall stats set up with high temperature limits?

Grallert

Here's an example. First floor hall has 6 rooms. Room #6 has a thermostat and room #1 has the zone valve. The girls in #6 are from Scandinavia TT down windows open. The girls in room #1 are from Cambodia. You see where I'm going here? That's an exaggeration but a common scenario. There are also a number of vulnerable runs of piping that have suffered from freeze ups if there's a failure of any number of things. My proof of concept zone only has two rooms on it but suffers from the same issues. We routinely have to supply space heaters to the girls for any number of reasons from one room mate is cold while the other is hot. I have no say in who rooms with whom or in which room they stay. So our main concern is comfort not so much cost of utility. A call from a chilly daughter to a concerned parent in Taiwan can be costly. This is my attempt to future proof this small building as a first step. I hope this is clearer.

Jamie Hall said:

psb75 said:

Do you have 11 zone valves and 11 thermostats? Your description needs some tweaking. It is a bit skeletal and needs some good "fleshing out."

I'm quite sure that is exactly what he means. The only question I'd have, @Grallert , is --in the interests of saving electricity -- is there a way that you can set it up so that the hydronic does the heavy lifting, say to 62 or so -- and the wall panels trim the heat as needed? Not sure how you'd keep the precious darlings from fiddling with the zone valve thermostats, but I dare say you could find a way...

This is the reason for wall panels Jamie. The base board convectors can remain in place if wanted and we can be assured that there will heat when one the girls covers up the base board with a comforter and a bean bag chair.

hot_rod

Got enough circuit to run 1000W or so? Panel rads or liquid filled heaters would be the safest.

mattmia2

Jamie Hall said:

psb75 said:

Do you have 11 zone valves and 11 thermostats? Your description needs some tweaking. It is a bit skeletal and needs some good "fleshing out."

I'm quite sure that is exactly what he means. The only question I'd have, @Grallert , is --in the interests of saving electricity -- is there a way that you can set it up so that the hydronic does the heavy lifting, say to 62 or so -- and the wall panels trim the heat as needed? Not sure how you'd keep the precious darlings from fiddling with the zone valve thermostats, but I dare say you could find a way...

You could run constant circulation and outdoor reset designed for the low to mid 60's indoor temp.


Another option would be to set it up with a bypass pipe for each emitter and put a trv on each and let them fiddle with that.

EBEBRATT-Ed

I would leave it all hydronic use a thermostat with a remote sensor so they can't play with it. Set it at 68-70 degrees and forget it.

If you put electric in yot talking a lot of amps they will crank them up high and it will cost a fortune.

Set the rooms at 70 with hydronic if they pile stuff against the baseboards and block them they will have to figure that out on there own

ChrisJ

EBEBRATT-Ed said:

I would leave it all hydronic use a thermostat with a remote sensor so they can't play with it. Set it at 68-70 degrees and forget it.

If you put electric in yot talking a lot of amps they will crank them up high and it will cost a fortune.

Set the rooms at 70 with hydronic if they pile stuff against the baseboards and block them they will have to figure that out on there own

Ever had to go on a call because the middle age adult couldn't figure out the thermostat wasn't turned on or the batteries we dead?

JUGHNE

My grandson who grew up in a 67 degree house (cold to me) had an apartment at college he shared with an Asian who liked 80 degrees.
It had the older programable HW touchscreen (green).

He had learned from working with me how to program the tstats in churches.
He set the temp at 68 degrees max and then locked the screen to allow only temp change.
His roommate called maint because of lack of 80 degree heat.
Maint man could not figure the problem out so just changed the tstat.
(Probably threw the good locked one away ).

So the newer version of that tstat was installed.
When Grandson was home I showed him how to lock the new one, you need the password which is on the back of tstat.
Also he learned how to offset the displayed room temp to trick people into the room being warmer than it is.

But the simple HW TH5110D has max temp locks which you could set at 70-72 and it is doubtful that any of these teenage girls had to work with their grandpa and learn how to program tstats.

mattmia2

JUGHNE said:

My grandson who grew up in a 67 degree house (cold to me) had an apartment at college he shared with an Asian who liked 80 degrees.
It had the older programable HW touchscreen (green).

He had learned from working with me how to program the tstats in churches.
He set the temp at 68 degrees max and then locked the screen to allow only temp change.
His roommate called maint because of lack of 80 degree heat.
Maint man could not figure the problem out so just changed the tstat.
(Probably threw the good locked one away ).

So the newer version of that tstat was installed.
When Grandson was home I showed him how to lock the new one, you need the password which is on the back of tstat.
Also he learned how to offset the displayed room temp to trick people into the room being warmer than it is.

But the simple HW TH5110D has max temp locks which you could set at 70-72 and it is doubtful that any of these teenage girls had to work with their grandpa and learn how to program tstats.

I mean the manual is on honeywell's web site...

JUGHNE

Yes, everything is on line somewhere.
But how many of those tenants would look there.
I don't even want to go to their web site.

Also as ChrisJ said;


Ever had to go on a call because the middle age adult couldn't figure out the thermostat wasn't turned on or the batteries we dead?

Solid_Fuel_Man

Remote sensors or lockable TRVs in each room. 

This whole 1 stat and 6 rooms thing is what is killing it. 

Grallert

Solid_Fuel_Man said:

Remote sensors or lockable TRVs in each room. 

This whole 1 stat and 6 rooms thing is what is killing it. 

This is the issue and the only way to stick with hydronic is a complete overhaul of the system whish would mean a nearly complete gutting of the building. This was in the plan precovid but that all went side ways with a drop in enrollment, travel restrictions loss of tuition dolor's etc. So my idea is something controllable and minimally intrusive. Not to mention attractive and saleable. The master plan does include more solar, we'll see about that.
Anyway is Runtal the only company making or importing Flat Panel electric radiators? I know Radson makes the but I can't seem to find an importer.

Grallert

JUGHNE said:

My grandson who grew up in a 67 degree house (cold to me) had an apartment at college he shared with an Asian who liked 80 degrees.
It had the older programable HW touchscreen (green).

He had learned from working with me how to program the tstats in churches.
He set the temp at 68 degrees max and then locked the screen to allow only temp change.
His roommate called maint because of lack of 80 degree heat.
Maint man could not figure the problem out so just changed the tstat.
(Probably threw the good locked one away ).

So the newer version of that tstat was installed.
When Grandson was home I showed him how to lock the new one, you need the password which is on the back of tstat.
Also he learned how to offset the displayed room temp to trick people into the room being warmer than it is.

But the simple HW TH5110D has max temp locks which you could set at 70-72 and it is doubtful that any of these teenage girls had to work with their grandpa and learn how to program tstats.

I'm the one who gets called. And the deal is, if a student is cold or says she's cold it's my job to change that. Sometimes that means closing a wind, exposing the convectors dragging in a space heater etc. What ever it takes. The call home to complain to dad about the heat can be very costly for us.

hot_rod

A Google search came up with
Envi, Amaze, stel-pro, Q-mark
Don’t know anything about them, they seem to be geared toward consumers, not pros?

mattmia2

I feel like the Runtal may be a wash with piping a bypass at each emitter and adding a TRV.

There is an electric panel radiator that is sort of a flat sheet of steel, kind of like the old style condensers on older refrigerators. The Runtal might be the only one that will stand up to what people in dorms will do to them.

Solid_Fuel_Man

I guess I'm not following. Wouldn't you be able to pipe in a bypass and a TRV in each room? That would mean no recipe or gutting. Pipe it with black or copper with the piping exposed. Is there just 1 radiation per room? 

Grallert

I suppose one could cut in monoflows and tees to catch a radiator in each room and cut out the zone valve at the end of the run cover up the copper that runs along the exterior walls. I suppose that could be done.