Radiant Heat Question

Bob C

BUMP.... I was doing some more research about radiant and found this article from Dan that you can't run a radiant loop off the boiler directly since there is to much junk in the water to run through the smaller radiant pipe.

I know you guy's don't talk $$ here, but how much more work is it to put in a heat exchanger compaired to directly piping the loop.

As you can probably tell, I am not doing the work. I just want to get an idea of how big of a job this is.

Bob C

Radiant Heat

I am currently remodeling an addition on my house that has Burnham baseray(steam) that never worked correctly. After emailing Burnham, I found out it was piped incorrectly. I think this is mostly due to the lack of space for the correct piping and return. The room is on a slab that is 3 feet above grade, so I guess it's a slab over foundation with no crawl space.

After reading some posts, I was sure that HW baseboard off the steam boiler was the way to go due to the piping limitations for steam. After reading the post about warmboard, it sounds like this is the most logical way to heat the room.

Now my questions. Can you install a zone of radiant off a steam boiler in the same manner as HW baseboard? The room is only 12X17, is this room to small to even consider this option. The boiler in the basement is right next to this room and piping would be easy, if you drill through the sill plate, it's perfectly level with the slab. I will attach a drawing of the room for reference. I hope this makes sense.

If you look at the picture, the only place for Steam on HW pipes to go in and out of the room is near the door. For radiant, you could start and end the loop directly above the boiler.

If Gary Wallace is reading this, please send a response. You are the closest radiant wallie to me.

Thanks for the help,
Bob

Unknown

You are going to need to limit the water temeperature to the radiant to one far lower than baseboard, especially with warmboard. In many cases you don't need more than 100 degree water with that stuff! However that can be solved with a tempering valve and a good thermostat for a one-room addition like this.