Heat Loss

John Shea

Does most of the conversation here regarding heat loss apply to that of pipes & radiators, the whole house (based on footage, insulation, etc.) or both? neither? Is it mainly to size replacement equipment? or more than that?

Thanks.

Constantin

It depends...

Steam boilers should be sized based on the size, length of the piping as well as the emitting surface area (EDR) of the radiators. Dan has published some very good books on the whole subject, ranging from the primer "We got Steam Heat" to the lovely "The Lost Art of Steam Heating" and "EDR, Ratings for Every Darn Radiator".

Other heating systems like hot-water, scorched air, electric, etc. are usually sized according to a calculated heat loss for a building. You can do this several ways, from plugging the values of your home into a heat-loss program like the free "Heat Explorer" from Slant-Fin or you can use your current gas or oil bill to back out how much energy your house is actually using. Usually, you will find that the calculated heating capacity is much lower than the capacity that was installed.

John Shea

Thanks Constantin

That definitely clarifies things.

Weezbo

the best deal going is when you build a home and know

what went where how much when what kind and why...simply put it is the loss of heat to the environment in which it lives.... the exact same home of the exact same quality cut into a hill with south facing glass will preform differently than one along side the Glacier with 100 mph winds rolling down at it..so it is more than just the pieces...

John Shea

I think I got it

so...

if you were say a steam system designer, you would do a heat loss on the building first, to determine the amount of radiation needed to heat the place (based on room sizes, insulation, leakage, etc.) thus sizing the radiators.

Then you would do a heat loss on the system itself based on the total radiation & piping?

Weezbo

the heat load is one thing

the loss is another....the boiler and piping is basically putting a predetermined amount of heat IN to the equasion...unless you have it piped out and around the building and outling vicinity... down into uninsulated crawl spaces,up into the attic under the ground what one would call Variants in the calculated loss....