Need suggestions on heat situation

Matthew86

Recently purchased a rental property in northeast Pennsylvania. 2 buildings on 1 property, 1 being a 2-family up and down, about 1900 sq ft, both units are rented. The other is a cottage house around 650sq ft not occupied and being renovated at the moment. Both are steam heat. 2 family has 1 boiler and 1 hot water heater for both floors and cottage house has 1 boiler and 1 hot water heater that are brand new and never used. I want to split the heat into 2 zones. I'm looking for the most cost efficient way to do this. At first I was thinking move the boiler to the larger house and add baseboard heat for the 1st floor while keeping steam on the 2nd floor, and put a mini split in the cottage house. Another option would be leaving the cottage house as is and just add a mini split to the 1st floor. Everything is natural gas and I am footing the bill right now and its not cheap by any means. Any suggestions or advice would be great!!

Jamie Hall

You really don't have a good solution available. The best of the bad options, though, in my opinion, will be to add a minispit to either the first or second floor of the 2 family and leave the rest as is. The boiler in the 2 family will now be wildly oversized, but that can't be helped in this situation.

My reasoning is this: moving steam systems around isn't plug and play. It's a little more complicated than that -- and expensive. Just cutting off a section of a system, though, isn't that hard. A valve or two, a couple of new drips and vents cut in, and you're done.

ethicalpaul

Curious--how not cheap? With steam in a rental it's difficult. You can't really zone it, you can't really bill it to them unless you have two steam boilers--and even then the upstairs resident will get a lot of the heat from the downstairs unit so fairness isn't optimal.

Is the house leaky and poorly insulated? Are the residents opening their windows and cranking the heat? These are the difficult issues.

leonz

Matthew86 said:

Recently purchased a rental property in northeast Pennsylvania. 2 buildings on 1 property, 1 being a 2-family up and down, about 1900 sq ft, both units are rented.

The other is a cottage house around 650sq ft not occupied and being renovated at the moment. Both are steam heat. 2 family has 1 boiler and 1 hot water heater for both floors and cottage house has 1 boiler and 1 hot water heater that are brand new and never used.

I want to split the heat into 2 zones. I'm looking for the most cost efficient way to do this.

At first I was thinking move the boiler to the larger house and add baseboard heat for the 1st floor while keeping steam on the 2nd floor, and put a mini split in the cottage house.

Another option would be leaving the cottage house as is and just add a mini split to the 1st floor. Everything is natural gas and I am footing the bill right now and its not cheap by any means. Any suggestions or advice would be great!!

=================================================================

As you have a locally obtainable coal supply in NE Pennsylvania a coal stoker boiler that is steam rated with an H stamp would be what you want as you could heat both homes with it. What your contemplating will cost you more money.

All you would need is plumb in a double drop header on the coal stoker or stokers to make much drier steam and install TRV's on all the radiators to control the heat output.

If your close to Williamsport, PA a visit to the Axeman Anderson factory to talk to Mr. Peter Axeman in South Williamsport would be worth every minute you spend there.

Matthew86

I understand splitting steam heat would be expensive or just not doable..didnt realize the boiler would be too oversized for just 1 unit. Maybe mini splits on both floors would be a more feasible choice. 

mattmia2

Is it 1 or 2 pipe steam? TRVs can be put on 2 pipe steam. They can be used on 1 pipe steam as well but they can only keep a heating cycle from starting, they can't stop a radiator from heating mid cycle once it already has filled with steam.

yesimon

Once you get your tenants on separate systems/meters you won't be responsible for their energy costs anymore. The cheapest for the landlord if you don't care about your tenants or energy efficiency are electric baseboards. Otherwise add your mini split for the first floor. Your tenants will love the A/C as well in the summer.

mattmia2

yesimon said:

Once you get your tenants on separate systems/meters you won't be responsible for their energy costs anymore. The cheapest for the landlord if you don't care about your tenants or energy efficiency are electric baseboards. Otherwise add your mini split for the first floor. Your tenants will love the A/C as well in the summer.

Some codes require things like minimum insulation if the tenant is paying for heat.

MaxMercy

Matthew86 said:

Recently purchased a rental property in northeast Pennsylvania. 2 buildings on 1 property, 1 being a 2-family up and down, about 1900 sq ft, both units are rented. .... I want to split the heat into 2 zones. I'm looking for the most cost efficient way to do this.

As a former landlord, my advice would be to not split the two family utilities and just roll the cost of heating into the rent - that certainly would be the cheapest option. Isn't that what the tenants are doing now?

If you're thinking you can maximize income property profit by splitting the utilities, you could be looking at years to recover if ever. You can install a thermostat that the tenants can't alter if you're afraid of abuse. Contact the gas company and see what the gas usage has been for the past three years.

JUGHNE

I agree with Max, just average out the gas over 12 months and add it to the rent.
If you split the heat for the double unit then you would have to split the hot water also.
Another water heater and maybe extra piping for the split.

There are all kinds of ways to control the single boiler; remote sensor, warm weather shut down etc. Even WiFi that you can control and monitor.

As for the cottage that tenant would have their own gas meter for heat and hot water.

I have had years of experience with tenants, some good and some bad.
And as he pointed out the ROI is forever to be seen.

Is this a 1 or 2 pipe system?

Matthew86

My GC will be at the house on friday to pet me know if its 1 or 2 pipe. I never knew there was more than 1 kind of steam heat and now realize after some research. I dont want to do electric baseboard due to the high monthly cost. I'm trying to find a reasonable situation that will not kill mine or my tenants pockets. I may do mini splits on 1st floor and cottage house and use the boiler from the cottage for the 2nd floor of the 2fam as long as the BTU's are correct for the size. Maybe a few electric baseboards as a backup to the mini splits. 

neilc

1 or 2 pipe steam is pretty simple,
how many pipes do you have going to your radiators?
1 or 2 ?