New Radiant System in Old House

dorsia

I’m currently looking into options for ~3,000 sq ft of radiant heating for a residence in eastern PA. ~1,200 of the those sq ft will be set in concrete, over a stone filled crawlspace. I’m shopping around for the best systems to use for my installer and I. On the areas that are not concrete, the floors will be getting new subfloors, so I can really build this whichever way is the most cost effective & efficient.

The house doesn’t have the best envelope as it is a modern house with a lot of glass windows. The system currently is hydronic baseboard which is oil fired. I’ll be dropping in a propane tank for use with this heating.

I have a quote coming in from Radiantec around $ which includes their Nortiz boiler/manifolds, etc. I was wondering if people like Radiantec, or could recommend any alternatives.

Thank you

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

You will not find many fans of Radiantec here on HeatingHelp for a host of reasons which will become evident.

Are you the GC? Have you ever installed a hydronic heating system? Do you have a hydronic supplier in your area?

mattmia2

If it has things like entire walls of glass you may need to supplement the radiant with some other type of emitter or some hydroair to cover that load.

dorsia

Alan, yes I am the GC. I have not installed a hydronic heating system myself, but I do have an independent tech who is capable. I haven’t contacted any hydronic suppliers in my area yet. Location is Bucks County, PA..

Jamie Hall

Do your sums. Then do them again. By which I mean run a full Manual Jon that structure, particular considering the large glass areas.

Then compare the results to what you can get out a radiant floor As @mattmia2 said, you may discover that there is no way you can meet the heat loss even close to a design day, and will need supplemental heat.

For that matter, it that glass is south or even more or less south facing, you may have some real problems controlling temperatures in various rooms. Radiant heat can be zoned, although iit gets a bit tricky, but it can't respond to loads which change within a matter of hours. Days, yes. Hours, no.

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Like Jamie said above, your most important tool in designing and installing a hydronic system will be an accurate room-by-room heatloss calculation. R-values for walls, floors and ceiling insulation, window types, infiltration rates and design temperature all come into play to give you a heat load. And that heat load will tell you how large to size the radiator for that room or if you're doing radiant, how close to space your tubing and ultimately, what size boiler to install. John Siegenthaler makes an easy to use heatloss program here.