Pipe insulation

Chuckles_3

It depends; I haven't seen your house.

But in most cases pipe insulation is not cost-effective. That's because the basement or boiler room is usually part of the house's thermal envelope; it's going to get heat anyway, whether from your pipes or through the floor/ceiling/walls.

If you insulate the pipes, heat finds some other way to get to the area. It's like water finding its own level. If you fully insulate all around the basement or boiler room, separating it from the thermal envelope of the house, then and only then does it makes sense to also insulate the pipes.

Now if your basement or boiler room is much hotter than the rest of the house, well, pipe insulation may help, but in terms of comfort more than cost savings.

saul deutsch

Pipe insulation

Is it recommended to insulate the supply copper pipes (from boiler etc.) with insulation? If so what material should I purchase i.e. should I spend the extra money on fiberglass insulation or other material will suffice? What difference in terms of heat loss can I expect with insulation versus without?

john_27

saul...assuming you are steam, use a minimum of 1 inch fiberglass

saul deutsch

Pipe insulation

I'm using a hot water system, not steam.

hr

Even inside

if there is a combustion air opening, to the outside, near the boiler, insulating the pipes would cut down some loss.

hot rod

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Terry

pickup loss

I was under assumption that anytime you insulate these pipes, you are cutting down the pickup loss of piping, sending more useable heat to zone. alas wasting less heat which is just heating up an already hot boiler room...

EIN

Chuckles_3

The excess heat in the boiler room isn't really wasted. A lot of it dissipates into the rest of the house, reducing the heating requirement for the rest of the house. (Assuming no air opening, of course.)

Making the boiler room a few degrees cooler improves comfort, assuming you spend any time there, but if it's an interior room this doesn't save any energy at all. You can technically save a little, but very little, if the room has an exterior wall.

Ever try shutting off the radiator in an unused bedroom? Everyone thinks that will save money, but you'll never see any difference in the heating bill.

Chuckles_3

Here's a ballpark calculation.

Let's accept the claim that a 1F setback reduces energy use 1%. Let's say you manage to lower the temperature in the boiler room by 10F (a generous overestimate of what pipe insulation can do). You're not "setting back" the whole house, just the boiler room, which is let's say 1/20th the sq ft of the whole house; . So you are saving 1% *10 /20 = 0.5% of your energy bill.

Out of a $2000 annual bill, you would save $10 (probably even less). How does that compare to the cost of the pipe insulation?

lchmb

disagree

I have just replaced a boiler in a residential application. The customer's biggest complaint was the fact the cellar was warmer than the upstairs (during the summer it was extremely hot). We replaced it with a Buderus which of course is well insulated and wrapped all the piping. Since it has been running the cellar now remain's nice and cool. Something the homeowner has never seen. As to saving's, I would rather have the heat upstair's not down..IMHO...

hr

I'm not with you on

this one chuckles. Insulation allows more heat to end up where it is intended. Year 'round DHW via indirect, make this even more of an issue.

I've run some loss figures with the pipeloss calc on the HDS. Bare copper at boiler temperature gives off a lot of btus.

I have also noted the difference between the kleenex brand, and thickness, insulation found on many domestic boilers compared to Bud and V boilers. It's significant.

hot rod

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