Insulation for hydronic piping

Gee

1. have miles of these pipes in my basement.
2. The pipes are not insulated and are heating the basement all by themselves, running up a huge bill as by the time the hot water gets to the radiators upstairs, it is not hot enough so has to use MORE gas.

Q. (Seems obvious) Should the pipes be insulated?
Q. What is standard type of insulation

Getting-poorer-by-the minute Gee

tls_9

insulation

Fiberglass, at least 3/4" wall, or thicker.

http://www.statesupply.com/displayCategory.do?Id=2062

http://www.statesupply.com/displayCategory.do?Id=2061

tuby

Chuckles_3

Insulating JUST the pipes is rarely worthwhile.

What is worthwhile depends on whether your basement is insulated from the rest of the house. If you don't have adequate insulation between the basement and the first floor (wood flooring/subflooring is not enough), the basement will draw heat from the house even if you insulate the pipes. If you don't insulate the pipes, the basement doesn't draw any heat from upstairs since it's already warm. Either way you pay to heat the basement.

So you can either

(a) insulate BOTH the basement ceiling and the pipes, thus excluding the basement from the heated area and making it really cold, or

(b) create a bigger "heating envelope" that includes the basement, by insulating the foundation walls but not the pipes.

Both these choices generally involve more effort/expense than insulating only the pipes, which is why pipe insulation is sold, but it is only a "feel-good" solution.

Chuckles_3

Is this true?

Dave Meers

A similar or related question

I am running two pipe (or tube) racks down both sides of the main beam in my basement to carry the 24 or so 3/4 inch copper manifolds (supply and return) to the radiant zones/loops and hydronic coils for my heating system. The racks will be 30 inches wide and 14 inches high with three layers of tubing in each rack. The racks are unistrut with insulating tube clamps. The tube runs are about 70 feet long each. Rather than insulating each tube, I am wondering if it would be more cost effective and easier to insulate the sides and bottoms of each rack. The racks will be against the bottom of the TJI floor joists above which have R-30 insulation between them.

Should I be overly concerned with heat transferring between the supply and return manifolds? The racks will also have the A/C tubing and domestic hot and cold water manifolds on them which would be insulated but no conduit or electric cable. I was planning on using 2 inch rigid urethane sheets to insulate the racks. Any concerns with this approach?

Weezbo

I belive one pipe can carry the same amount as twenty...

Dave,why so many 70 ' runsDave? something says to me,Increase the pipe size and make the connections prior to the run. then you need only deal with two pipes 70 ' long.

Weezbo

Gee, Depending on where the btu's are being distributed ,

and where they are needed to be are two very fine reasons for insulation...protection from colatteral damage and sound maybe two more good reasons,to save fuel,well now that has certain variables that insulation of the pipes alone may not fully address.nor particularily even approach in any way .

Chuckles_3

This makes sense...unless one likes more head

Curiously, piping for an add-on in our house (done before we bought it) was done the same way, with long runs of multiple 3/4" copper tubing. They are all for the same zone, so it could have been done with a single run of larger tubing that is split off into 3/4" tubing very close to the zone,

Either people are just used to working with 3/4" tubing, or maybe they wanted the shutoff valves to all be located in the vicinity of the boiler. Neither sounds like a good enough reason; using larger tubing for long runs saves money, saves on pumping, and reduces heat loss due to pipe surface area.

Dave Meers

A similar or related question

Maybe I should clarify the number and length of the 3/4 inch copper manifolds. I have 6 zones of radiant and 3 hydronic air handlers for boosters. That's 9 supplies and 9 returns. All of the manifolds don't run the entire 70 feet but feed the 4 zones on the first floor and 1 air coil. The other 2 zones and 2 air coils are on the second floor at the far end of the house. I also have 3 pairs of A/C tubing and the domestic hot and cold supplies. I guess I could have used a common return for the zones but I have circulators for each zone and coil. Anyway, my real question is should I be concerned about the heat transfer between the supplies and returns if they are not individually insulated? I also don't want to heat the basement with all of these manifolds.