engineering report on my house, hydronic, radiators, furnace(s)

Ken_8

Picture's worth 1000 words!

What you have there my friend is not all that rare nor what any of us expected!

Assuming all the elements in your home are the same, bit not necessarily floor flush mounted, I need to explain the following:

1. Copper fin-tube is what you have and despite it appearing to be "pins/fins" swedged on copper tube, covered by chicken wire, it is neither new, nor home made. Either Edwards engineering or some other major maker made tons of that form of HWBB (hot water baseboard) and also made it to work in trough boxes with grill plates, floor mounted as is your picture! When put in less compromised manner (like in a baseboard wall hung cabinet) can put out ~600 BTU's/ L.F. with 180° avg water temp. If installed properly, without the baffle removed, even flush floor mounted units can put out ~450 BTU's / L.F.

2. The problem with the HWBB element is a simple fix. A vacuum needs to remove all the crap and dust, webs, and candy wrappers from the past 30 years and the output will be potentially able to do its job.

3. Potential is the key word. A baffle is always present in offset floor trays like the one you picture. I don't see it in your photo. It may be part of the ornate brass grill, or just not apparent. Either way, there should be one there to induce a "chimney effect."

4. Speaking of chimney effect, HWBB (of any form - YOURS INCLUDED!) without a cabinet that iduces a chimney effect, will ALWAYS come up short in the performance/output arena. As well, anything that blocks the chimney effect will reduce output drastically. The more common cause of denying the chimney effect is crap in the fins, the lack of proper baffling within flat or verical enclosures, and anything else that denies air flow accross the "element."

Let me know if this is completely understood. If not, we need to review a bit more.

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Eugene

Yes! It very much resembles a porcupine!

Eugene

Thank you! You are the second person to recognize this type of radiator. Most professionals (even the engineer I used who is semi-retired and has probably seen everything) have never seen this.

I can say this. The pictures I took were (embarrasingly) taken of the last two radiators that have not been vacuumed. I took them because the grates were unscrewed so that I could clean 'em!

So I have cleaned as thoroughly as humanly possible all the other radiators. This pin design makes it very hard to clean I might add. You need a tremendous amount of suction to get the junk to come up. Otherwise, the vacuum just dissapates through all the air space surrounding the pins. The previous owner must have kept a christmas tree over the one in the living room for 20 years! When I opened it up I swear with enough elmers glue I could make an entire spruce tree.

But seriously. There is DEFINITELY NO baffle! My engineer said that even if I put a baffle in, it would not help because I also need space underneath the radiator tubes so the air can come down through the baffle and then under the element and up.

As others have said, I do believe this to be a major contributor to my problem. I will add that for a normal baseboard (I do have this in the basement) I can put my hand several inches above the output area and feel heat rising. However, for these pin radiators, I only feel heat when I place my hand ON the grate. This leads me to believe that there is very little heat rising because of lack of convection.

What do you guys think about that amount of radiation in the 11x13 bedroom and the master?

Tonight, I will try to post the floor plan of the house that shows the windows and doors, etc.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Cleaning

Here's a couple ideas:

Does your vacuum have a "blow port"? If so, try first blowing to loosen/remove the debris then sucking out.

Do you have or can you borrow an air compressor? If so, compressed air is VERY good at cleaning things like that...

Ken_8

Gene,

is it possible that there are no baffles because someone removed them a long time ago?

To tell if baffles would help, the row(s) of finned elements would be offset; meaning, a row (or two or three) would be in the trough (as you call them: "enclosure" would be my choice of terms) as in say an 8" wide enclosure, and the elements are positioned in such a manner that about 1/3 or 1/2 of the total 8" is unused, e.g., of the 8" wide enclosure, the element(s) are offset and seem to all be on one side rather than evenly cenetered within the enclosre?

If they are offset and to one side, then baffles were at one time there and would look like this: |*'__|

From left to right, the first line (|) being the enclosure wall, the asterisk (*) being the element, the apostrophe (') being the baffle, the underscore (__) being the enclosure floor (which should extend under the element, but I can't get both symbols to superimpose), and the final line (|) to be the other vertical face of the enclosure.

Make any sense?



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hr

I think Spirotherm

the folks that make the Spirovent, actually made baseboard with that type of element. Long before the air and sediment traps, I believe.

I agree compressed air would have more umph to clean it out. I'd wear a respirator or dust mask, probably all kinds of germs in that litter

hot rod

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Eugene

> the folks that make the Spirovent, actually made

> baseboard with that type of element. Long before

> the air and sediment traps, I believe.

>

> I agree

> compressed air would have more umph to clean it

> out. I'd wear a respirator or dust mask,

> probably all kinds of germs in that litter

> 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_

Eugene

> the folks that make the Spirovent, actually made

> baseboard with that type of element. Long before

> the air and sediment traps, I believe.

>

> I agree

> compressed air would have more umph to clean it

> out. I'd wear a respirator or dust mask,

> probably all kinds of germs in that litter

> 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_

Eugene

floor plans

in case anyone is interested. I've posted the floor plan of my house with window and door detail. It can be found at http://www.hertzmail.com/house/floorplan.pdf

Also, I checked the radiators again. The pipe (heater element) is generally centered in the space. There are times when it is over to one side, giving perhaps a 2" gap on one side vs. a 1" gap on the other side.

It really does not look like there was a baffle. Again, I was also told that there should be some space beneath the heating element and above the bottom of the trench.

Eugene

this looks nearly identical to what I have

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Doesn't that construction pretty well guarantee some free air space below the tube?

Eugene

perhaps, but just about 1 inch. I guess I was figuring it would need more than that...

If someone can give me some guidelines, I could try to do a temperature measurement at the beginning of one and the end of one and I could publish the length of it. Maybe we can establish if they are working right?

Chuckles_3

> What you have there my friend is not all that

> rare nor what any of us expected!....



Isn't the Wall amazing?

jerry scharf_2

so try the baffle experiment

Eugene,

take one of those floor units with the 2" gap to one side, cut a piece of cardboard so that it is the length of the trough and stop 1.5" up from the bottom of the trough. Masking tape to hold it in place is fine for the experiment. Then see how much of an improvement that makes. I'll bet you'll be surprised how much of an improvement it can make. With 180F water, the heat should just jump out.

Actually, the use of floor convectors doesn't seem like the worst idea. It's just that someone didn't understand what was going on, and upkeep was a problem. If the two dollar fix works, then you have to time to decide whether you want to keep with "the pits" or move to a new system of emitters.

If this works, you can buy a couple bullets. Hand them to the people who didn't have a clue and tell them if it wasn't for Dan Holohan and his band of merry wetheads, the delivery would have been very different.

jerry

tim smith

floor convectors

I agree, try the divider and see if it works, you might try checking out one of the Beacon morris floor convectors to get an idea of location of divider on theirs so you can try this on yours. Maybe you could get ahold of Beacon Morris and get an engineering drawing to give you a decent idea of comparison. Good luck. If you can't get a drawing, email me and I will see what I can find. Tim

tim smith

One more Idea?

Not my favorite thing in the world but if really needed, the Turbonic floor fan/coil units put out alot of heat for the space. I don't like the use of fan units if not needed but could be a way to increase heat with out too much demo to install radiators. Still insulation is #1. Again good luck.

Christian Egli

Can I suggest a bad idea?

Assuming your home is ducted for summer AC, you could insert a gas or oil furnace in the system and have hot air heat.

Better, you could also use a water to air heat exchanger and use the heat from your current boiler.

That could possibly even out your room to room temperature differences and add to the radiation you seem to need for possibly only a smallish cost. The combined air and sunken radiators might even be quite comfortable.

Try the compressed air clean-up first. It probably will solve all your problems. Now that you know the dirt is there, you won't want to live with it anyway.

To add air flow into the sunken boxes without baffles, could you perhaps make holes into the bottom that pierce into the ceiling below? This would cause floor to floor air flow. This is how some old mansions were heated. Maybe there are such vent holes in your system already, they might be closed.

Now for the good idea, did you consider installing steam? I happen to think it makes for happy heating.

Good luck, the clean-up will be a great improvement.

Eugene

thanks for the thought. No ac in the house (that'll be the next post from me around may/june! I love steam. my last house had it and I could turn it on 1/2 hour before I needed to wake up and the house would be nice and toasty.
holes idea is actually very creative, not sure how the wife will take to it tho! Actually, I think they are forbidden in the fire code. My last house had these "heat registers" which were essentially grates on the floor and ceiling (through the floor) to allow heat to rise up into a bedroom. I guess if there were to be a fire, the fire will shoot straight up this thing. Also I think dumb waiters had the same problems. Good idea tho!