forced air steam heat ?

Steamhead

to keep the radiators and just change out the A/C unit. If you want to use a duct coil, you must pipe it in as 2-pipe and run a return line from the coil to the wet return in the basement. A trap is not needed here. Vent the coil at its outlet.

Zoning this setup might take some doing also. If the coil was close to the rooms you might be able to get away with a remote-sensor TRV at the coil inlet. If not, a motorized valve on the inlet would work. Either way, you're turning the "A" dimension into a "B" dimension at the coil outlet- make sure you have enough height above the waterline so the condensate can drain without flooding the coil.

A surface-mount aquastat at the coil outlet could be used to start the fans when the coil is completely heated.

Sound complicated? It is. Keeping the radiators and maybe equipping them with TRVs is a much simpler solution.

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thfurnitureguy_4

forced air unit for my steam system

Thanks for the wall! Thanks Steamhead. My venting and cold radiators are much better. Next question. I need a steam coil forced air unit to replace the AC unit I have. My duct work is at celing and spans the 150 feet of the 2 rooms. The room are 50 X 30 and 100 X 30. These are the two rooms with only 3 radiators. The curent AC is shot and very old I would like to replace it with a unit that would do both Steam forced air and AC. To heat / cool these 2 rooms what kind of floor mounted units are available. I plan to remove the 3 radiators that are now installed. (1, 4 section, a 15 and a 14 section) Do these forced air units operate off a stat? or do you keep playing with venting to control temp? Thanks for the tips. Tom

thfurnitureguy_4

Frank Thanks I have one small heater like this now and the radiators are ok just not enough of them through the long building. I have looked for any taps to add more radiators but no luck. This is an old system and I hate to break into any pipes. Any "furnace like" systems that run off steam?

Steamhead

Not enough radiation?

That's unusual in an old steam system- with the thermal improvements we've been making to our buildings over the past 30 years, there's usually too much radiation!

In this case I'd stop, take a deep breath, then add up all the radiation on each main and see how much extra capacity the mains have, if any. You can find capacity tables in "The Lost Art of Steam Heating".

I don't know of any packaged units like you describe, but I'm sure something could be put together. Another thought is if you have large radiators that are spaced at some distance from each other, you could substitute two smaller ones for one large one to distribute the heat better.

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