Small circulator or not?

John M

I'm enclosing a porch - 150 sq ft. Plan is to use baseboard hot water heat tapped into existing system. Main house is convection fin using monoflo tees driven by a BG series 100 on the return side. Baseboard will cover the heat loss per calcs, and boiler has capacity.

The existing boiler return is about 2' over and 2' down from the underfloor entrance to the addition. I will have about a total of 16' of baseboard heat split (unevenly) between each side of the room.

Don't think I can afford to repipe to create zones or primary/secondaries yet. Just want to get hot water to the baseboards.

2 questions:
1) Can I use monflo tees to get the water to the addition, or should I use a small circulator?
2) Is it better to use a manifold and split each side of the room for the baseboard so that the temp is more even? Or is one run OK?

Thanks,
John

Steamhead

When using Monoflo tees

they must be able to create enough pressure drop in the main to divert the water into the heat transmitters. If you don't get enough flow diversion, the heat will not reach the rooms.

In order to know whether monoflo tees could be added to your system, we'd need to know the size of the main, how much total radiation you have, how big each convector is and the pipe sizes leading to the convectors. The new units should be piped the same as the old so the system will stay in balance. And don't forget to size the new baseboard to the same water temperature used for the convectors!

If we find that the existing piping cannot handle the additional load, a separate loop with its own small circulator will work fine.

In either case, I'd change the system to Pumping Away. This will aid air elimination and the system will be quieter and more efficient.

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