radiant heat

m dewolfe

Over the summer I had radiant heat installed in my new kitchen. the plumber who did the work seemed pretty good and removed the old hotwater baseboard and installed the new system in about a week using 12 pex and staple up plates. Now that we start using it I have noticed that the other rooms in the house seem to warm up very quickly with the old baseboard while the kitchen are is just starting to warm up then the thermostat is satisfied and shuts down leaving the kitchen a little cooler. my plumber says this is normal and that when the very cold weather hits this will all staighten out as the boiler will run longer. My wife is p*%&$# about this and wants me to replace the thermostat but I dont think this will help. What should I do? Gary

Ken_8

You are right.

Changing the stat will NOT correct the problem!

There are many solutions and strategies available. Among them, constant circulation. This would allow the system to naturally balance out the spikey response of the HWBB - and the naturally slow response time of the radiant.

Another would be system separation via zoning the radiant as an independent element.

Outdoor reset would be a possibility as well. This would reduce the spikey nature of the HWBB part and allow much longer circulator run times - flattening out the water temp temp. spikes as well as "on" flow periods.

Depending on boiler design, bypass piping or temperature sensitive bypass device(s) would probably be required to keep the boiler from near-condensing water temps with any strategy. If your boiler already has anti-condensing internal bypass designs present, all three options are viable without much boiler piping alteration to achieve good results.

BTW, fuel consumption would be reduced by any of the strategies mentioned. Hope this helps.

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Al Letellier

radiant kitchen

I my humble opinion, anytime this type of work is done, the kitchen should be on separate zone. This way, the kitchen would have it's own Tstat. Wirsbo makes an excellent Tstat with a floor sensor that can keep the floor warm, even in the cooler spring and fall days. Changing the existing stat won't help. Relocating the stat to the kitchen will most likely reverse the problem.

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hr

The simple fix

MAY be to split the zone as Al mentioned. Before that, however, you need to do a heat loss calc to make sure the radiant floor output can match the load and/ or baseboard removed from that room.

You need to cover the heat loss of that space regardless of the type of heat emitter. Kitchens can be tricky with limited floor space. This is why you often see kickspace heaters installed under kitchen cabinets.

You might adjust the baseboard damper to try some balance, but make sure you have enough output to meet the load on a design trmperature day if you start limiting the bb outputin the other rooms.

A heatloss calc on these BBed rooms will assure you of the bb's ability to heat the room under all conditions.

Heatloss calcs are sooo easy to do with a laptop or manual calc sheet. All jobs big or small, new or remodle, should start with a new load calc. Lots of folks upgrade windows, insulation, and reduce infiltration, that changes the heat load.

hot rod

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m dewolfe

heat loss

As I recall the first thing that our plumber did was a heat loss and he added in all the new windows and insulation. Checking my notes over it would look like a 22m
heatloss value was the final number. this was how he came to recomend the radiant. Hey this is only about 360 sf not like the Mcmansions that we see around town. could I get by with a seperate thermostat or should I throw in the towel and try to hire another pro. We spent all of our "available" capitol on the kitchen project and I dont have a lot of cash to spend on reengineering the hvac. One of the stinging points was that we spoke to several heating contractors and the one that we chose had many great referals. looks like a long cold winter for me!

hr

Here are some options

for creating a seperate radiant zone from a bb system.

http://www.pmmag.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,2379,62497,00.html

Without more details, boiler size, kitchen load, etc it would be hard to give you an exact answer for your best option.

I would doubt that this much radiant would create a problem for boiler return protection. Esecially being a low mass radiant zone.

You may not be far away from a simple inexpensive fix, just depends how the radiant was connected to your system.

See if any of the drawings in the above link look like your system. your installer should be able to create any of these control options for you.

hot rod

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Ted_9

> for creating a seperate radiant zone from a bb

> system.

>

> http://www.pmmag.com/CDA/ArticleInforma

> tion/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,2379,62497,00.

> html

>

> Without more details, boiler size,

> kitchen load, etc it would be hard to give you an

> exact answer for your best option.

>

> I would

> doubt that this much radiant would create a

> problem for boiler return protection. Esecially

> being a low mass radiant zone.

>

> You may not be

> far away from a simple inexpensive fix, just

> depends how the radiant was connected to your

> system.

>

> See if any of the drawings in the

> above link look like your system. your installer

> should be able to create any of these control

> options for you.

>

> hot rod

>

> _A

> HREF="http://www.heatinghelp.com/getListed.cfm?id=

> 144&Step=30"_To Learn More About This

> Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in

> "Find A Professional"_/A_



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Ted_9

"Hey this is only about 360 sf not like the Mcmansions that we see around town"

Just because its small doesnt make this an easy project. You may have less floor space for the radiant than is required. I mean to say, less floor space means less tubing and possibly not enough heat. Get those calcs out and give use the info on the room. How is this piped? Is it separate from the baseboard? Are you receptive to making that loop on its own with outdoor reset and boiler protection?



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jerry scharf_2

please check the heat loss

If I take your numbers of 22000 for the loss (pretty high) and divide it by 360 sqft, that comes to 61 btus/sqft. That's high.

What you need to do is look at the losses, and look at the amount of visible floor (under the cabinet and fridge don't count) and get that ratio. You can only make the floors so warm before trhey become uncomfortable, and if you can't get the heat out, you will need to add some other heat output.

Also, a separate zone for the kitchen makes a bunch of sense. Moving the heater to the kitchen would be a bad idea, you'd freeze the rest of the house when you're cooking and cook it other times.

jerry

m dewolfe

After looking over my proposal and checking what is in the basement I have a third hotwater zone added with a taco zone valve, a taco mixing valve with outdoor reset and boiler protection,a second 007 circulator that is wired thru a taco control panel for the radiant zone. All the usual manifold,valves,and a honeywell temp sensor on the radiant supply that is wired to shut down the circulator pump if for any reason the system water temp rises above 125 deg. The thermostat zone is just conected in paralell
across the first floor Tstat. where do I go from here?

Ted_9

Is this what you have?

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m dewolfe

I think I have a I series mixing valve. much smaller with two {thermocouples?} on the pipes and one larger one outside. several dip switches and leds. very compact about the size of a softball and it says "taco i series mixing valve". from the looks of my invoice I payed about $475 for it. From the looks of things I will be sleeping on the couch until this gets resolved, wife is getting angry after looking at the bill

Ted_9

Ok then. Give us a photo.

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Unknown

125 is not a very high max water temp for a lightweight plate staple up application, for one. If your heat load is too high for the available floor, then nothing you do will help except additional heat.

For two if this really is its own zone, there should be some kind of thermostat in the kitchen for it. Considering it sounds like the plumber did the rest of it fairly well I wouldn't imagine it would be too hard to add one.

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John Jr

Where do you live?

Gary where do you live? It might make it easier for someone to come out and look at it.

McMansion owner

Your domestic ills...

So...is your wife looking for somewhere warm to sleep?