Radiant in floor heating, apartment won't cool.
Hello, I am a person who moved into a brand new apartment building with a strange heating system. They said it was in floor radiant heat that built up heat and released it over time. They said it took like a day or so to cool down if you change it. Ok, not my favorite option but fine.
The problem is that we turned the system completely off because it was so hot in here, and 3 days later the apartment will not cool down. It's winter in Portland and it's freezing outside but 78 degrees in the living room. The floors still feel warm. It just feels like heat is constantly radiating from somewhere. What could possibly be the reason for this? I feel like it's a mechanical problem or they've configured it poorly...I don't know anything about this stuff to really have any specific ideas. Just seems wrong.
Comments
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You have no control in turning down the heat for some reason , it is just running on the buildings outdoor reset control …
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Thank you. Been trying to reach management but they're out for the holidays and there's no emergency maintenance number. Don't know if they consider it an emergency but I do. I'm very sensitive to heat and heat related illnesses.
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do your windows open ?
known to beat dead horses
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I'm on the 7th floor of an 8 floor building, with a community room above me. Huge windows. The 3 bedroom windows all crank out. The living room window does not open. I have had all 3 bedroom windows open for days with the doors open to bring as much cool air into living room as I could.
Today I even hooked up my portable AC and connected the exhaust to the dryer vent exhaust. But that room is around 2 corners and down a hall from the living room. After several hours of having it on the temp went down 1 degree from 78 to 77.
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it sounds like a case of ghost flow. Somehow somewhere water flow is bypassing, or going backwards through a control zone valve or zone pump for your space. Could be a shorted or mis wired control Dirt or debris holding a valve open.
Not easy to troubleshoot over the WWW
The installing contractor would be the best set of eyes to get on it
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream
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Thank you. I have reported it to them but haven't heard anything yet. Tomorrow I'll ask the manager when they're going to look at it. I'm using so much electricity running my AC 24/7 and even at night it's not getting below 70. My biggest fear is what this will mean come summertime. If it's 78 in the winter when it's 38 outside, then when it's 90 outside is it going to be like 130 in here? That's crazy.
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I was officially told NOT to turn the thermostat to off. But to keep it on and lower the temperature by a specific 4 degrees, wait 24 hours and report whether or not it lowered.
If off isn't actually turning it off isn't that indicative of a problem right there? What kind of system wouldn't allow me to turn it off? Even though the thermostat says off.
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If it was done right, there should be a manifold in the apartment, or out in a hall utility closet. It could be as simple as an actuator not seated properly.
I think once it's functioning the way it's supposed to, you'll be happy with the radiant. Once you find the sweet spot, just leave it. What thermostat is it? Do you know if it has a floor sensor?
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Management actually gave a decent bit of advice here for the general user. Whether you turn it off, or set it 4 degrees lower, after 24 hours the temp should drop, if not that would mean whatever controls your zone is not working. If it DOES drop then you will want to set your thermostat low enough so the space stays comfortable, even if that number is below what you normally would set. I don't think it was the intent of your property management to give a system that won't turn off, there may just be a broken component. As for the cooling issue, currently your floor is pumping heat into the space for heating right now which is why it is overheating. In the summer your boiler will be off, so you will just need to cool the space like normal, whether or not the A/C is big enough to keep you comfortable remains to be seen
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It's an UPONOR touch screen thing. I don't know if it has a floor sensor.
The temperature drops every night, then raises again in the day. I had the thermostat set to 35 and turned it off. With it "off" it drops to about 71-72 overnight with my 16,000 BTU AC running 24/7. Monday night it actually broke out of the 70s to 69 overnight, but yesterday I turned the thermostat on and set it to 68, then last night it didn't get below 72 for some reason.
When we walked through the apartment prior to moving in, the thermostat was set at 66 and it did not feel hot inside. As soon as we moved our stuff and 5 bodies in it shot up to the high 70s. Which just tells me it never sensed the temperature rise and shut down the heating until it lowered again.
The walls in here all have gaps at the top with "vents" (long metal rails full of holes) running along them. This was to vent the heat out they said. So radiant heating installers already know there is a potential problem of trapped heat. But as far as I know there's no such thing as a building so well designed and insulated that it will never lose heat once applied... If it's 35 degrees outside, any building that is not being supplied heat will be freezing inside.
After more than a WEEK with this set to off and it being very uncomfortably hot, why wouldn't they conclude that either the thermostat or something is malfunctioning and actually send someone to fix it? It's 100% still coming from my floor, because everything that gets lifted off the floor is all warm underneath. I may be in the minority but I LIKE when hard floors are cold under my feet.
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Have you told them the heat has been set far lower than what the indoor temp is, and that it just keeps going up? Obviously either the heating system is supplying heat when it shouldn't, or you have another source of heat in the apartment. I'm a little unclear if all these tests are being done with an AC running or not. if the stat was set to 68, and stayed around 72, with no AC or windows open I would say that sounds like a balance issue more than anything, set the stat for 66 maybe it overshoots a little. My advice for talking to management is to keep this very brief. "I have the stat set at 60 and it's 78 in here, floor is still hot please send a service tech" I'll just say if you give them the full story they will get confused, as am I, its a lot of info. Just set the stat at 60, close the window and turn off the AC, and then call them and tell them its too hot, the system is not turning off. Once it is repaired set your stat so it is comfortable in the space, even if you have to set it lower than you think you want it to be because it you floor will probably continue radiating heat even when off for a good few hours and you like it cold
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I hooked the AC up on Sunday later in the day. It's been running constantly since then and it does help. It was up to 78 in the day before I hooked it up now it only gets to 75-76.
The bedrooms are the only comfortable things, and they will get too cold at night but if I shut the window all the way it gets too hot to sleep so I have to leave it cracked.
But yeah I will keep it brief and tell them the temp will not lower and that the floors are still warm.
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My wife talked to them on her way out and the manager stated that it CAN NOT be turned off, only lowered. So there are systems where a tenant is not able to stop the hot water flowing through their apartment? And the "Off" on the thermostat what, just doesn't do anything? It actually just stays on whatever it was last set at? Does that sound right?
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If it can be lowered then it can be turned off. The manager does not want you turning off the infloor heat because if it freezes you have to tear the whole apartment apart to fix it
to clarify a little, every time the thermostat is satisfied (at or above setpoint) the system is effectively turned off. it's possible they installed dummy stats, but also pretty unlikely as those are decently expensive little stats
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you are going to be communicating with people who do not know how the system operates and are just doing what they are told. Many heating techs don't understand these systems let alone the new building manager. the boss probably told them "these can not get turned off" and they extrapolated from there. Either the stats do absolutely nothing, or they can 100% be turned off if they can be lowered in any way. I would not turn off the system though, just turn it down as low as it can go for now
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The landlord is letting you make his problem your problem. It's not your job to fix it. The question is probably better handled by a landlord-tenant law forum than a heating forum.
At this point I'd be telling the landlord:
- All future communications need to be in writing
- I'm going to be withholding rent if it's not fixed soon
- I'm withholding rent for the cost of running the air conditioner until it's fixed.
As to the cost of the air conditioner, a 16,000 BTU/hr unit should use about 1kW. There are 720 kW hours in a month, so 720 times whatever a kWh costs where you are.
These people may not understand how the system works, but they understand money.
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Brand new apartment building could very well just be a mis-wired zone valve. Landlord more than likely just needs to contact the installer, they usually cover 1 year on these jobs to fix any install errors. thats why I suggest keeping it brief with them because you need this manager to be on your side to get this resolved quickly and smoothly. Sure if you want to go to court over it that's up to you, personally I would think thats a bit more of a pain than getting the landlord to call the installer.
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Don't pay the rent until the problem is fixed. If maintenance can't do it, they need to find someone who can. Because saying turning it off will make it hot is like saying the sun sets in the east. It's absurd.
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maybe these are normally open, power shut valves, fail safe open (?),
and you need to have the system ON, to shut valves,
try On, and set the temp to 55 / nothing / 2* higher than as low as it can go,
and give that 24 / 48 hours
known to beat dead horses0 -
Management doesn't exactly seem to be falling all over themselves to get this fixed.
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It was an actuator not working. So hot water was continuously flowing. After a week and several more tenants complaining about their heat being stuck on they came to check. Took them all of 10 minutes and it's fixed. The floor finally cooled down and the temp lowered.
Thanks everyone for the advice. It was stressful for a short time but I knew I wasn't wrong, that there was a malfunction of some kind.
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Its a shame you were led to believe that you were doing something wrong. Where I come from, off is off.
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There is still something very wrong. I will forever be triggered by the mere mention of radiant in for heating now. Now every time I move anywhere I will need to make sure they DON'T have this nightmare of a system. The absolute worst thing for a user you could possibly do. Right off the bat, to take 24 hours to see adjustments is an absolute deal breaker. I need fine, fast control over my environment. And all the gaps on top of my walls, people being able to literally peak from one room into another... It's lucky my kids aren't teenagers yet and I have no roommates. There's no privacy! Even the bathroom has holes along the top of the wall.
Anyways, yesterday the temp actually dropped down to what the thermostat is set to, I think it was 67, and I freaked out because I knew what that meant... Waking the beast. I immediately turned it down lower but it was too late. The system kicked on and just. Wouldn't. Stop. It heated all night long and I woke up sweating at 6am to see that it heated the apartment up to 75 degrees, in the night!
It's to the point now where I am going to barge into the office and demand that they shut this blight on humanity off or I will stop paying rent and take them to court! I had to open my bedroom window to the freezing air and loud Street noise so I can't go back to sleep. I would rather start a fire in the living room to warm up than ever deal with this monstrosity again. Seriously, a space heater in every room is a far, FAR better option than this trash. Fine, immediate control over each room, giving every individual power over their own comfort. I can't figure out why they didn't do the traditional electric radiant panels... If it ain't broke.
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Stop paying rent and get a lawyer to send a sternly worded letter to management. And who designs bathroom and bedroom walls with holes in them? This place sounds like a nightmare.
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Please don't think this is how every radiant system works. There are well-designed systems that deliver great comfort.
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These rails with holes are along the top of every wall. Even the one to our neighbors unit, although that one looks filled with insulation and has cheap rubber strips stuck over it. They said it was to vent the heat but that never made sense to me. Heat is lost naturally, the struggle is always to keep it in, not how to get it out. Same goes for cool in the summer.
Is it possible that during installation of the heating system they realized they had a big overheating problem and rather than tearing it all out they made a last minute decision to "leave" the walls unfinished at the top and call it a feature? This place is very distressing and I really just feel the need to get out asap.
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It's mass timber so these wood beams are everywhere and the walls don't seem to quite touch them anywhere. The vertical beams in the corners have tiny gaps between them and the walls, and that makes yet another place where you can see straight through from bedroom 1 into bedroom 2 and vice versa. From top to bottom. If you stand at the right angle, even from the center of the room, you can plainly see straight through to enough of the other room to see a whole person. It's terrible.
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any overheating issue with radiant can be fixed after the fact, they either lower the supply temp, or in your case they just need to fix the actual control valves
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Almost anything "can" be fixed, but the real question is "will" it be fixed. This building seems badly designed (vent hole along the tops of walls???) and the heating system installation is probably a nightmare done by the lowest bidder. Good luck to the residents.
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I've seen a ton of wacky building ideas and poorly done heating systems but this takes the cake. I find it hard to believe this system is a goner though. It's unfortunate that this is the kind of thing that gives radiant heat and heating techs a bad name.
Miss Hall's School service mechanic, greenhouse manager, teacher, dog walker and designated driver
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Timberview apartments in Portland, Oregon. Truebeck construction was the contractor but they had some HVAC company install the heater and I can't remember their name off hand. Between the units, and the rickety elevators that shake really bad with each step, and make all kinds of loud scraping and banging noises in the shaft while they're moving, it truly is a nightmare here. And a high crime area outside that's not their fault but makes the whole experience nothing but negative.
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Now that you mention the mass timber construction, I wonder if the gaps at the tops of the walls were intended to accommodate shrinkage or movement of the mass timber frames. When building a log cabin, you have to leave gaps at the tops of window and door frames to allow the logs to shrink and settle.
There are a number of Google reviews of the Timberview apartment complex, and many residents complained about parking, but no one complained about the heating system. You may have gotten the one apartment where the controls are messed up. Keep making a stink until they fix it.
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That's a different Timberview. This one is off 99th and Glisan. It's brand new and doesn't even have a Google listing yet.
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And there were multiple other units complaining about the heat being stuck on and they had to replace the actuator in all of them. But that's just a part that physically opens or closes a valve and if this new one is working that means there's some other problem. A thermostat set to 66 should kick on your heater if the temperature drops to 65, but it should only kick it on enough to warm it up one degree back to 66. It shouldn't continue building heat an extra 9 degrees...or more. That's just what it had done by the time I caught it and opened the windows. With the windows open the temperature started lowering but it only hit 69 and then went back up and is currently at 70.
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Thermostat anticipators are different depending on heating system, they don't all turn on at -1 and off at +1 that wouldn't work with every heating system. Infloor systems for example might shutdown right before hitting setpoint, since the mass of the slab will continue heating the space. While there is the possibility to overshoot, especially if a space is getting a lot of solar gain in the afternoon after a cold morning, you are absolutely correct that it should not be overshooting 9 degrees. To me that implies your heating loops are either still calling for heat, or the actuators are stuck open, either way it seems like a control issue that management should be made to feel compelled to fix. Out of curiosity do you happen to know if the floor heating is in concrete (if you are on ground level for example) or do you have wood floors?
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does your unit get any solar gain? South facing windows? That can cause temperature overshooting
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream1 -
I am on the 7th floor it's all hardwood. Actually I couldn't tell you if it's real wood but I don't know what substance they're using to radiate the heat. And we have a huge floor to ceiling window facing south in the living room. It's definitely harder to keep cool in the daytime but this temp rise was in the middle of the night.
Early this morning, after opening all 3 bedroom windows and doors it cooled to 69, then by midday was going up again. At 72 now at 7:40 pm, with windows still open. It's been dark since about 4:30. They went on about it being more of a "set it and forget it" system that's supposed to maintain a temp. But it doesn't maintain anything. It just keeps heating and heating.
Gonna tell them I need it totally shut off and staying off. If I get too cold I'll get space heaters. If they refuse, I'll have no choice but to attempt something myself, whatever can be done from in my unit. I can open the wall panel and take a picture and upload it.
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They're supposed to come tomorrow.
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Maybe that blue handle will just shut off my zone entirely?
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A picture of yourself next to an exposed PEX loop with bolt cutters should get their attention. 😉
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