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Hot water CI radiator and baseboard fin

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DaveY98
DaveY98 Member Posts: 1
in Radiant Heating
Ok, my wife's house has old CI all thru the house. This house is not in use, as she moved to my house after getting married. The other day, we noticed the boiler was not running, ran out of heating oil. She called and had a delivery made, after bleeding the line, the boiler fired up. Well is seems that one of the CI froze and broke. This is the only CI in the room. Now the, the house thermostat is located in this room. I don't really want to remove and cap as this being the only one in this room. Can I instead install a baseboard fin in its place? I'm not sure what you call this type of system, but the hot is coming from one pipe, thru the CI and is returned in a different pipe that returns to the boiler.

Dave

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  • EdTheHeaterMan
    EdTheHeaterMan Member Posts: 7,834
    edited January 2020
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    Negative.

    the Flow rate of water thru CI and Copper tube is much different.
    You can get CI baseboard from a local plumbing and heating supply company. they will usually rent you the assembly tool if you need to assemble sections to make the proper size. If you are less than 6ft you can usually get one preassembled.

    I know that it is tempting to just slap in a copper/alum fin. baseboard, but the flow rate through the tube must be a minimum of 1GPM but better output with 4GPM flow. The CI Baseboard may be piped in such a way as to only get 1/2 GPM or less.

    When Copper/Alum fin is the only affordable way to add a zone to a home with CI, You must add a second complete zone with its own circulator pump and perhaps redesign the near boiler piping to accommodate two temperatures from the boiler. 160°F for the cast iron and 180° to 200°F for the economy baseboard design.

    I don't believe this is what you need because the CI replacement will be less than the piping redesign and zone components.

    Also... Some plumbers keep CI baseboard from old homes just for this type of situation or maybe a scrap iron recycler might have something.

    Edward F Young. Retired HVAC ContractorSpecialized in Residential Oil Burner and Hydronics

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