vacation home recovery

paul_17

I deal a lot with vacation homes. People leave, turn it down to 55F, come back weeks later and want to be warm, say 70F . I am concerned with a customer that i have who's cottage might take three hours to warm up at 32F outside, by forced air. This outside temperature is warmer than our design temperature of -15F. I have checked and double checked my heat loss calcs - the equipment is designed to exactly meet the heat loss at the design temperature.I am also wondering about recovery and building design because this cottage is built like an actual barn - post and beam, 24 foot high ceiling . Can anyone share their warm up experiences.

Steamhead

Mean Radiant Temperature

is what you're dealing with here. Scorched-air systems heat the air but not the building surfaces, furniture etc. These can often be very cold long after the air has been heated. Since the human body is a radiator, people will radiate their heat to those cold surfaces, and feel cold as a result.

Hot-water or steam heat is better at warming those cold surfaces. The result is the room feels warmer faster.

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adambuild

Ditto to what Steamhead said! He's right on the money. That's why hydronic and radiant are so much more comfortable. However, I do have a suggestion! We just installed a Sensaphone unit (1104CS) for a NJ client that has a vacation home in PA. They call the house several hours before and turn on the heat so it's warm when they get there! If you're interested, e.mail me back and I'll give you more info.

Adam

Big Ed

Summer home recovery

I have a vacation home which has electric heat .I winterize the home everytime I leave during the winter months. As mentioned the wall take time to heat up. I found starting the heat by phone at 8am , the home and walls are heated when I arrive (after work and the trip up ) 10pm. Lets say 12 hours. And thats from a dead cold of Brrrrrrrrr . Hope this helps

todd s

Freezalarm

Is a device we use. The unit is the size of an answering machine and calls up to three differnent to notify of 1. Loss of heat(or cooling). 2.Loss of power 3. Auxilary alarm (for burner,water sensor, or other). The deluxe has the ability to raise the temp remotely. We have used a couple dozen of these and they work great.

Big Ed

Radio Shack

I use the radio shack module system .Found to be the cheapest.They have a small relay that plugs into a wall outlet(very low amp) that I use to control a ra89 that pulls in a contactor . I also installed a bypass switch that I turn on while I up there so I can shut down the relays. I also turn on a few lights with the phone control... Using the system for 7 years now.

BillW@honeywell

Enviracom

Our Enviracom and PC8900 Home controls, with their communications modules can do this. Available from any Honeyell distributor, no retail equivalent.

Tim Gardner

I had been thinking of installing scorched air in an unheated farmhouse "vacation" home, but since discovering this list I have more appreciation for steam. I would think water systems might be harder because of freezing issues. With less water, steam might fit the bill, but are there any issues for draining a steam boiler every time after a winter's weekend use, say 10 or more times a year?

Thanks,
Tim

flange

tim, if the budget allows, why not install a nice hydronic system utilizine brine instead of plain ole' water. with the right glycol solution, your worries go away, and you can use the honeywell tstat to remotely start up your heat. a solution around forty percent should probably meet your needs, just make sure you size correctly for the glycol versus water. it will add a little to the system requirements.

Steamhead

The problem with going that way

is that if this home is out in the sticks and has a septic system, you can't drain the glycol solution into it when the system needs servicing.

Tim, the system you want is Orifice Vapor. It has the fewest moving parts of any heating system out there, and can be used with cast-iron baseboard as well as ordinary radiators. Being steam it won't freeze, the orifices eliminate the need for traps, and you can add TRVs to rooms you normally keep cooler, such as bedrooms.

I would provide your boiler with two low-water-cutoff units though, in case one goes bad while you're away.

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