Oversize everything?

Patrick North

OK- we'll see who's up late/early on these here boards... A last minute, no time to research it all question for you steam guys. Kind of awkward to explain- I'll do my best.
In renovating a sun room, it's clear that the radiator for the room (lots of windows, second story over open porch) is proportionally undersized compared to those in other rooms, especially given heat loss. I thought I'd move it to the adjoining room that has a rad that is, apparently, very much oversized for similar reasons. Now in the meantime, I've done a heat loss calc for the two rooms and find that the "too small" radiator was technically more than large enough for the space- it seems that all of my radiators are pretty much oversized, but this one wasn't proprotionally oversized. While ideally I'd want to size all of the radiators to their respective heat losses, don't I want to oversize the radiator for this room to the same extent that the others in the house are oversized, just to keep the heat even?
Hoping to pick up an old radiator cheap tomorrow morning at a local auction want to know what I'm looking for. Thoughts?

Thanks,
Patrick North

Steamhead (in transit)

Well, I'm awake

just finished posting about a round Nason radiator we got today......

What I'd do is a heat loss on the rest of the house to get the percentage of oversizing. Then try to find one in that range. If you're short on time, just do a couple of sample rooms.

Also see if the smaller rad fits the percentage in the inner room, now that that one wall is no longer an outside wall.

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Christian Egli_2

A nip and a tuck

Perhaps it is nothing you need to worry too much about if you install some thermostatic valves to prevent overheating in some of the rooms.

If it's a two pipe system, you can install controlled orifice to artificially starve the appetite of the excessively large radiators.

johnnyge

how do you do the heat loss calculations.?

Ron Schroeder

Click Heat Loss Calcs

in the lower bar at the top of the page

johnnyge

I did that but i haven't received the CD yet. I was hopping for a math formula or something like that.

Ron Schroeder

Here is something to play with while your waiting

http://www.pprbd.org/plancheck/Heat Loss Table.pdf

John_102

Heat Loss Calcs software

I'm no pro & in a dark, scorched desert with a wheezy old steamer (western SC) where the stock answer is "buy a heat pump". I've long been tempted to order this CD, but I don't want to take advantage of the publisher (since I'm not a pro). Am I just being foolish? Could the publisher provide the software as a download (to offset his costs)?

To homeowners where steam & hot water isn't so exotic - SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PROS.

Boilerpro_5

An even easier solution

Is it it is two pipe is to simple throttle the rads in the rest of the house to balance them against the rad in the sunroom. You may also want to reduce the firing rate of the boiler, since you have no effectively downsized the whole system.

Boilerpro

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Patrick North

Thanks!

Got one for a decent price that I think will work out. And thanks to all the info I've gotten from you all on this board, I wasn't the one who asked these questions of the auctioneer (really!):

Are these self heating radiators? (I wish!)
Are these for steam or hot water?
Will these work with oil?

Oh, and I'm pretty sure I was the only h.o. there with EDR crib sheets in his pocket.

Thanks again,
Patrick North

Steamhead (in transit)

Yes, go ahead and order the CD

that's why it exists.

If you can find a local contractor who can work with black threaded pipe, you should be good to go. If they don't have any steam experience, I've been known to do consulting....


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