Heating Sytem for Addition..Where to Start?

chuck_6

Pete:

I'm not an expert, just a homeowner. We have a 75-year old house that has steam heat with radiators. In my view steam heat is better than forced air. If anyone in your household has allergies or sinus problems, steam heat works best, and it is still used. Run separate ducts for A/C if you are considering it.

Pete_6

Heating Sytem for Addition..Where to Start?

We are currently trying to decide between the final two general contractors to construct an addition to our home(2-story with basement, 18x24, kitchen, 2 baths, master bedroom). The house is circa 1800,located in Massachusetts, and currently has a natural gas boiler with steam/radiator heat. We are clueless on how to approach the heating system. Both GCs have identified the heating subs, but we would like to know about some of the things that need to be considered when working with them to select a system. Am I correct in assuming that we cannot replace our existing boiler with a larger unit and do steam heat in the new space? I am assuming that steam is not used in modern systems. If I am correct, then we would need to install another system. What system(s) should we consider? Whatever sytem we choose, we will be using natural gas as the fuel.
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Pete

MikeB34

Steam Boilers

There are still steam boilers being manufactured. UTICA boilers in UTICA N.Y. (web site is ECRinternational.com)makes 1. can't help on rads tho. But if you need a new steam boiler, they are available

Dave Yates (PAH)

a multitude

of options are available! I'd be willing to bet the current steam boiler is oversized. A thorough heat loss and comparison to the connected load will determine that.

From there, you can decide upon a course of action & it is feasable to couple a radiant heating system up with a steam boiler.

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Unknown

A lot depends on what your long term goals are

If you like the steam, and plan to stay a while, you might consider putting radiators into the new part. It likely would involve running a main all of the way to the boiler from the addition. How the system that's there is piped might make a difference in cost, but it's do-able.

You might run a hot water zone from the boiler and use baseboard or radiators. Check this funny story out.

http://www.heatinghelp.com/newsletter.cfm?Id=29

I think the first question to ask would be how many square feet of radiation is there in the system, and how big is the boiler?

Noel