primary- secondary piping

joekats

I am puting in a two radiant zones, in a hot water baseboard small house. I'm adding a baseboard zone, and leaving another zone in an exposed area for back-up in case of extreme low temp's,. I have piped a small primary line that feeds the radiant as well as all the other baseboard zone's. My question is, even though the radiant seems to be taken care of, how important is it that the rest of the secondary baseboard zone's, be balanced with the primary line. Right now it is alot smaller than any of the baseboard zone's, will this cause flow problems,and uneven heat. I'm using zone valve's on two of them, and I'm thinking of using a cirulator on the added zone. My feeling is that I should extend the primary, and that if I was using circulator's, I wouldn't even need to do that. Any help would be great, Thanks Joekats

bigugh_4

Sounds scary!

Gallons per minute carry But's the stuff that heats the house. You cannot get more but's out of less gallons per minute. A heat loss is needed here! calculate it. next is that much heat has to be carried to the elements. That much GPH has to be there! less and cool will prevail. There is a limit of GPH that should be held for every pipe. It is Five feet per second. If that GPH is ok then you are in business if not bigger pipe in needed. 3/4 pipe is kinda normal. @ five feet per second 4 gallons per minute flows. 1 gallon of Water per minute @ 180* F will carry 10,000 btu's per minute and 3/4 pipe will handle 40,000 btu's per minute. There is no way to SWAG heat! (scientific wild **** guess) Do the math and do it correct and you'll be warm when it counts