Constant circulation and panels

pipefitter#51

After reading some of the posts here I find the concept of using constant circulation with panels and a condensing boiler with outdoor reset as a lower cost alternative to radiant a very interesting one. Would the house be one big zone or could you zone each room with a trv and bypass on each panel with a pressure releif bypass after the circulator? How would you heating pros design your system? Food for thought.

Ken_8

You have touched upon the

simplest and probably least costly way to make hydronic heating a reality.

Simple design, no hairy control strategies. Extreme reliability, low installed cost and little mainytenance.

What could be better?

I for one, do not like panel rads. I see them in Europe and just think they look dorky. I prefer the less expensive (per BTU of output) and more streamlined simple HWBB emitters. But that is a rather subjective aesthetics issue. Although the basic cost of the emitters does favor HWBB, RTV's are used on HWBB systems - with excellent results.

Night setback, room by room night setback, and perhaps solar integration might be problematic?

IMHO, these features take a back seat to simple designs, low cost and absolute comfort!

I think the KISS method is alive and well in this approach and support it withou reservation.

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mellow_3

do you want comfort?

baseboard is convective heating and not the same as rad. panels. The panels give you room control that you feel even with low boiler water temps. The trv is allready in the panel and with diverter valves you can link them together. The valves also get the same temp water up to all the panels at the same time. You can put out more heat than bb in less space.
The bb dosent convect well below 130 degree water and it has very little mass to it so it changes temp fast you can feel the change. too many reasons to list for rad heat tease are just a few.