gravity system

grindog

I am working on a three unit building. The first floor has an old gravity system that supplies six radiators, the other floors have gas stoves that heat the spaces very inefficiently. The home owner wants me to give him a price on installing baseboard heat on both floors. I need to know what is the easiest and cheapest way to run heat to these other floors. Can i tie in to the existing boiler or do i need to install a seprate boiler.
The other thing is that the boiler is sized to run all three units but over the years of remodels all the radiators have been taken out and the lines capped in the basement. this is a four pipe system two supply and two return. Please help

DanHolohan

This will help

Gravity Systems

It pays to wander off the Wall.

Steamhead

Convert the gravity to forced circulation

and run the baseboard zones as you normally would. Note that the water temperature requirement for baseboard is generally higher than for radiators. You will want to do a heat-loss calculation for all three floors, and determine from that how hot the existing radiators need to be to handle the load on design day. Size the baseboard for the same maximum flow temperature. This may mean using high-output baseboard.

Pump away from the expansion tank. This will help keep air from causing problems in the baseboard zones.

You should be able to run everything off the existing boiler. The heat-loss calculation will tell you for sure.

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grindog

gravity systems

thanks for the reply Dan, i did read the whole story about gravity heat before i wrote, i was just looking for any additional information from any other wet heads. thanks for all the great info.

DanHolohan

You're welcome,

and Steamhead has done a great job of filling in the blanks. Shouldn't be a problem at all.

dave_54

hi-lo switch

HELP I have a National-U.S Radiator hot water sys. . I reciently lost electric power for 38 hours to my house. So me and a electrician friend hooked a 24volt battery to the system to keep it going. In the prosses we hooked it up wrong and fried the transformer. I instaled a new transformer and since then the tempeture in my boiler is decresing about 10 degrees a day. Today is 12-29-04 and the high temp. in the boiler is 95degrees and the low temp. is 90 degrees . I need to bring the boiler temp. up to about 130 degrees. Can anyone help me? The boiler is a
N-U.S. rad. 8-11B
thanks dave.

P.S. please contact me @ mopar42002@yahoo.com

Steamhead

Water temp will vary

according to how cold it is outside. The system has to work harder when it's cold so the water gets warmer. As long as the house heats to the temperature you want, you should be OK.

In a power failure you need to hook the boiler to alternating current, not the direct current that comes from a battery. If you use a battery, run the power thru an inverter.



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