Is baseboard heat installed wrong? Does it matter?

Brad White_34

YES it matters. These are convectors and require airflow in order to work. Right now the air entering is picking up and displacing whatever heat is enclosed in the cover. Little if any is going over the fins. It is the equivalent of shutting the damper atop each section. Air in = air out.

Savings:

Not sure how big your house is, where it is or how well insulated.

But say it is a 2000 SF single-family home in a 6000 degree-day climate, +10 F design winter temperature and a heat loss of maybe 60,000 BTUH (30 BTUH per SF) and 80% efficient system.

With oil at $2.25 a gallon it should cost about $1800 per year.

With gas at $1.80 a therm it should cost about $2000 per year.

If you turn the fins I would think that your output increase will be dramatic. Best of all, if the house heats now without a problem (even at high cost) you can be more comfortable for less money by running your boiler at a lower temperature with outdoor reset.

Can you not turn the fins yourself? A bit of cutting and soldering if you are handy. If not, do hire a pro.

P Corrigan

Is baseboard heat installed wrong? Does it matter?

15 yrs ago we converted our house from electric baseboard heat to gas hot water baseboard and the gas company's plumber installed 80% of the units with the flat side of the fins up. The system seems to work OK. Should we pay $1500 - $3000 to turn the fins? What would we save on our $2500 yearly heat bill? Or does the baseboard work installed either way?

Paul Fredricks_2

It seems to me that fins are generally somewhat on the loose side. Would it be possible to pull the covers off each radiator and spin the fins by hand? It seems to me that when I used to install baseboard I would sometimes need to straighten out the fins this way.

If possible it would be better than spending all that cash, even if it takes some time.

Brad White_34

To which, may I add

That if you can spin the fins, the bond between pipe and fin is not the best and cannot transfer heat the way a properly bonded fin and tube element should be.

Indeed I agree with Paul that if it "is what it is" and you can spin the fins by hand, I would. Good point. But if the stuff is that cheap (fins with an "x" punched in the middle, stuck on a tube), well, enough said here...

Joe Brix

Do you have room

to lift the tubing out of the hangers and spin the fins around? Tought to do on large sections. You must have an oversized boiler if you say the house is heating fine like that.

Big Ed

Heating Licence

This is the reason there should be two licences ....Two different trades.

Uni R

How even is your heat?

If your heat is even throughout the house I'd be inclined to leave well enough alone.

jackchips_2

Hi Brad,

I am in the spin the fins first column especially if he can do it himself. I would highly suggest wearing a good pair of gloves.

My second choice would be the cut, spin and coupling route but even then $1,500.00 sounds high. I just did an adjustment in my daughters home, adding eight feet and it took two hours. So spinning a whole house shouldn't take more than a day or two and a box of couplings. Something missing?

Now for a naive question for you. If the house is heating evenly doesn't that seem to say that all the fins may be wrong and therefore the house is just taking longer to get to temp but once there is maintaining it ok?

TIA,

Jack

Brad White_9

Jack, Hi

I would remain true to my original posting in that, even if the house can now be heated, it is like walking with a brick tied to one foot. Why do that even if you can still walk? Why make it hard on yourself?

Point being, with the fins emitting proper heat as they are capable of doing when rotated correctly, lower water temperatures can be used compared to whatever is being used now. That will save fuel. It has to.

John T_3

Jack

Are you a contractor?

If so, how can you comment on what is high and what is not. This trade is hard enough to make a decent living at without others replying, sight-unseen what a proper charge should look like.

John T.

jackchips_2

Thanks,

I wasn't disagreeing with you but only being a Contrarian which could be interpreted as a PITA but not trying to be.

I understand the lower temp thing but am trying to understand how the house could be heating properly with those fins turned, it shouldn't but if it is it seems it shouldn't use that much extra fuel it would just take longer for the fins to put out the BTU's needed.

Except for pipe loss what isn't going out to the rooms is going back to the boiler, No?

Jack

jackchips_2

Sorry

you took offense. Yes I am a "contractor", semi-retired and it would have to be quite the house to demand at least $1,500.00 to turn the fins.


With that said, I only responded to the writers information and agree not everything is known.

Jack

Brad White_9

No argument taken, Jack

My take on the heating and time factor is that the rate of BTU's into the house is less than specified, so yes it would take longer to reach temperature. But BTU's in has to match BTU's out to maintain any temperature.

That the space heats now indicates to me any of the following:

Oversized radiation which compensates for turned fins.

Higher water temperature to drive the fins to a conductive rather than convective heater. Sort of an indirect convector using what would seem to be solid metal from an airflow perspective.

And you are correct, what goes out and is not used elevates the return water temperature. Boiler short-cycling and bouncing off high limit is probably a common occurrence.

Contrarians Unite! Challenging assumptions is the work of angels.

Brad

Ron Schroeder

Uni

I can drive to NYC from my house in 20 hours At 30MPH with the brakes on and auto transmission slipping or I can make that drive in 10 hours and use the brakes only when needed to stop or slow down. Just because I can do it smoothly in 20 hours doesn't make it the right ting to do.

soot_seeker_2

They call me _______.

I just never ruled out the chance that the correctly installed ones happen to be in key occupancy comfort spots within the house.


If much of this is the case and you rotate the ones that are mostly in bedrooms, and therfore not as directly influencing the comfort factor or the t-stat, then you are going to actually use more fuel.


If for whatever reason this guy has to pay $1500 to $3000 to fix the gas company's error, do you really think it has much of a payback? It's pretty hard to guess what exactly this is costing the person in efficiency. My point is that it may not actually be enough to worry about. The inconvenience of having all your rads pulled and risks of leaks are all part of this.


On a related note... I was once asked? "What are a car's brakes for?" This was put in the lines of the answer being a true benefit and not a feature or how it derives the benefit. Anyway, brakes let the car go fast (safely).

Ron Schroeder

Uni

I found one system installed like this and it would heat ok except on the coldest days of the year so the home owner just keep turning a few at at time until they were correct and now has great heat all year long. As far as brakes go I worked on a costruction site driving truck on site, I complained to the boss to the lack of brakes his answer " we don't need brakes around here, around here its just go go go."

S Ebels

Find a contractor with

A ProPress tool. I'd wager thathe could probably rotate all your fin tube in a couple hours or less, another couple hours to fill and purge.........5 hours tops unless you have a really wierd installation. If you live within 500 miles of Michigan, I'd drive to you and do it myself for $3K. A ProPress would make that a very simple job. Keep looking. It would definitely be worth it.

Ron Schroeder

Are the baseboards all the way around the outside walls or just for part of the walls and un-finned pipe in the rest of the wall area?

Do you have a tankless coil in your boiler?

What are the settings on your boilers aquastat?

Do all of your rooms heat well?

How long does the burner run on each burn cycle?

The answers will help guess how much savings you could get from correcting the fin orientation.

Remember, the wrong orientation still radiates efficiently but just doesn't radiate as much. Without changing the settings on the boiler you won't be able to get much fuel savings from anything other than from reducing short cycling. If the correct orientation of fins allows you to lower your average boiler temperature, you will get more savings.


Ron

Brad White_9

More specifically

they may "radiate" as much but will not "convect" nearly as well as proper fins. We both agree on the salient point: Rotate the fins and you can save operating costs. Probably be more comfortable too!

joe_66

efficiency

clearly the baseboard is oversized if the system seemsto work O.K.the only way you could gain from getting the full output from your baseboard(more output being the only change)would be to lower system temp.you could probably get a nice Viega heating control four way mixing valve/actuator and alot of repipe for 3g's.that will net you about twentyfive percent here in southern ct