Design a heating system?

[Lagrue]

O.K. guys. I live in old old farm house not insulated good. I redone the heating and air in it a few yrs ago. spent a bunch of money. I have propane furnaces for backup. Primary heat is a Taylor OWB on 3 diff loops in the house, set up on 3 diff. thermostats.

I am going to build a new house in a couple yrs. The house will be a 2 story house with a basement approx. 3600 sf. I am thinking radiant heat with an OWB. Can the radiant heat be ran in the upper floors or only in the basement. How hard is to regulate your temp in the house with radiant heat. I now very little about it. Is there a good source on designing radiant heat systems.

Also open to other suggestions here as well. Lots of sharp people on this board. This well be the only house I ever build and I want it done right. Was also thinking of running the radiant heat out in my drive way as well for an ice melter.

 

[modn]

IMHO I think radiant is great in a concrete floor as the concrete is a major heat sink (will hold and radiate heat very well). Other than that you have wood, maybe hardwood floors, and carpet although some ceramic in kitchens and baths. They are all very poor to work with radiant heat. If it was me I would use it in the basement and hot water baseboard in any other part. Of course I sure would have an OWB hooked into it!!!

 

[Lagrue]

Thats is kind of what I thougt. I didnt know how well the radiant heat would work up stairs. There will me no carpet. All hardwood and ceramic tile floors

 

[modn]

Thats is kind of what I thougt. I didnt know how well the radiant heat would work up stairs. There will me no carpet. All hardwood and ceramic tile floors

That's better than the carpet, but wood is still a poor conductor of heat.

 

[AKKAMAAN]

O.K. guys. I live in old old farm house not insulated good. I redone the heating and air in it a few yrs ago. spent a bunch of money. I have propane furnaces for backup. Primary heat is a Taylor OWB on 3 diff loops in the house, set up on 3 diff. thermostats.

I am going to build a new house in a couple yrs. The house will be a 2 story house with a basement approx. 3600 sf. I am thinking radiant heat with an OWB. Can the radiant heat be ran in the upper floors or only in the basement. How hard is to regulate your temp in the house with radiant heat. I now very little about it. Is there a good source on designing radiant heat systems.

Also open to other suggestions here as well. Lots of sharp people on this board. This well be the only house I ever build and I want it done right. Was also thinking of running the radiant heat out in my drive way as well for an ice melter.

Idon´t know about the building codes here in US but....
Why not an IWB, indoor wood burner on first floor or in basement?
That will give you an extra 20% energy out of your firewood...
I would put radiant heating in the floors, all levels.....wall radiators ar less efficient, and can still give you cold floors...when floors are warm you need lower room temperature for the same comfort, which means less energy burnt..

I would also set up the burner with an ackumulator tank, sized 300-500usg...
That way you only have to make 1-2 fires per 24hr day, depending on house size, insulation and outdoor temperature...that will cover all your hot sink and shower water needs aswell...ackumulator tank save energy for you, that otherwise will go out in smoke....

I think you should look for scandinavian designed indoor wood burner, they are very sophisticated en super efficient....probobly cost a bit more but much less maintenance....
here is a couple of links that show some of them.....sorry they are in swedish...http://www.mollepannan.nu/index2.php
http://www.varmebaronen.se/html/vedpannor_oversikt.html

I´m sure you can find some of this equipment here in US, There are, roughly, 20-40 manufacturers in Scandinavia, and some of them are availble here in US...

The best investment you can do is a very good insulation...8 inches in walls and floors and 16-18 inches in the roof...That is maintenance free energy for ever...after that you start thinking about heating design....

 

[Dan_IN_MN]

Check out this link

Check out this link:

http://www.arboristsite.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=87158&stc=1&d=1232218902

Dan

 

[AKKAMAAN]

Here is an interesting article about water radient flooring

 

[Jon E]

Good thread started here. It gives me a chance to think about what I would have done over if I could start again. Some background – I moved into my new house a year ago after designing it and building it over a period of four years. I think I did a lot of things wrong.

First – if you have the wood supply (you already have an OWB) put one in. Either an indoor gasification boiler like Greenwood or EKO, or an outdoor boiler. My business partner has an EKO 40 that he installed in a lean-to off his house, it’s a self-contained room off his kitchen that stores three cords of wood and the boiler. I have a Central Boiler with a dual-fuel setup (propane and wood) and I would NOT do that again. I would still install an OWB, probably try to build some kind of pole building so that the OWB and a winter’s worth of firewood would be under cover. I would also try to have a separate buried, insulated tank (maybe surplus 500 or 1000 gallon propane tank) that would circulate continuously off a secondary port and give me between 700 and 1500 gallons of water (depending on the model of OWB and the size of the tank) as a water jacket. That would allow LONG burn times and less frequent feeding, I think.

I would not do the dual-fuel option. I have found that the propane part of the OWB is incredibly inefficient, and it’s also a pain to clean the firebox in the summer when the water temp is 180 degrees. I would spend the money to install an ultra-high-efficiency wall-mount propane boiler (or oil, if you prefer) in the basement, one of the ones that can vent through a PVC pipe.

As far as radiant heat, PEX in the basement slab is the way to go. I am heating my entire house right now with a loop under each of two second-floor bathroom tile floors, and the basement slab. There is no other heat in the house. If I were to do it over, I would have used something like Warmboard subfloor, or something that put the radiant tubing in or above the subfloor. Staple-up is OK but a pain to install. I don’t care much for the gypcrete PEX installations but you might be happy with that. Putting the PEX in gypcrete on the first and second floor allows you to have a large thermal mass, but it makes installing everything else difficult unless it’s very well planned out. There’s an unbelievable about of information out there on radiant in-floor heat, and it’s something I couldn’t ever imagine changing about the way I heat my house. I’ll be building a garage in the summer and I plan on heating it with another zone and loop from the OWB. The secondary storage tank that I didn’t think about the first time, might be installed in an insulated room in the garage, and I can use that ‘extra’ hot water to run a dry kiln for lumber.

Also give some thought to running your OWB systems off-grid, so that you are not without heat in a power outage.

 

[trimmmed]

IMHO I think radiant is great in a concrete floor as the concrete is a major heat sink (will hold and radiate heat very well). Other than that you have wood, maybe hardwood floors, and carpet although some ceramic in kitchens and baths. They are all very poor to work with radiant heat. If it was me I would use it in the basement and hot water baseboard in any other part. Of course I sure would have an OWB hooked into it!!!

Do you have radiant heat? Why would it not work on the upper floors?

 

[AKKAMAAN]

Do you have radiant heat? Why would it not work on the upper floors?

It works great if you do it right....pexsupply.com/Wirsbo/Uponor have everything you need to install it

 

[trimmmed]

It works great if you do it right....pexsupply.com/Wirsbo/Uponor have everything you need to install it

Lol, I wish I had a link like that when I installed my system 20 years ago.

 

[modn]

Do you have radiant heat? Why would it not work on the upper floors?

Not in my house, but have it at work. The radiant heat needs a thermal mass to work to its peak potential, wood isn't one of them. If you install under your subfloor and want hardwood floors, good luck finding one to warranty their product. Some engineered flooring do warranty though. Now they have a lot of products to bring the pex above the sub floor, I think the reason above makes this a good option, although planning and extra cost will be factored in. I have many customers that are unhappy with the radiant below the sub floor, but the same customers love it in the concrete.

Will the radiant work on radiant below the sub floor? Sure will, but you will get more from Hot Water baseboard or the pex above the floor with a thermal mass. But don't listen to me go talk to users and ask how much fuel they burn for the year.

 

[Biker Dude]

All good points so far and I have installed pex under 1st and 2nd floor houses before so it can be done but that was using a pressurized LP boiler for heat. I don't know if it would work with an OWB because it is vented to atmosphere and you might have a hard time keeping water in the loops that are above the level of the boiler. I would do tube in the basement and a backup forced air furnace or air handler with a water heat exchanger in it. That way you could have central air conditioning in the summer and heat the whole house with the OWB. When I used to work HVAC the most challenging jobs were the ones where the customer had water heat and wanted central air. It is a lot easier and cheaper to put in a furnace and ducts when you are building than it is later down the road. Also if I was building new I would build with those foam core panels for walls as they are very efficient.

 

[AOD]

PEX can be laid in any floor, the most common method is to lay it under a thin layer of lightweight concrete, called jibcrete. The staple-up method works too, but the cement method is far superior. Controlling the zones is simple, each floor or major living area is put on its own zone valve and T-stat. It might be a good idea to have a couple of wild loops, zones that run whenever a zone asks for heat, to dissipate excess heat in the event of an overfire. A snowmelt loop is a good "wild" zone and takes care of another chore. For backup, go with a high efficiency LP boiler, and consider a standby genset to run the whole works in a power outage.

 

[trimmmed]

Not in my house, but have it at work. The radiant heat needs a thermal mass to work to its peak potential, wood isn't one of them. If you install under your subfloor and want hardwood floors, good luck finding one to warranty their product. Some engineered flooring do warranty though. Now they have a lot of products to bring the pex above the sub floor, I think the reason above makes this a good option, although planning and extra cost will be factored in. I have many customers that are unhappy with the radiant below the sub floor, but the same customers love it in the concrete.

Will the radiant work on radiant below the sub floor? Sure will, but you will get more from Hot Water baseboard or the pex above the floor with a thermal mass. But don't listen to me go talk to users and ask how much fuel they burn for the year.

I hate to tell you, but my personal experience both at my own house with all hardwood floors/tile in baths and all the houses i've worked in in the last 10 years say that you are wrong. Wood certainly is a thermal mass, maybe not as efficient as cement but it certainly is a mass, just like the furniture that sits on top of it. It is also still more comfortable and cost effective operating wise, than hot water baseboard.

You did make a good point about the additional planning if you go on top of the subfloor, I have yet to see one architect/engineer do that in a new house though.

 

[modn]

All good points so far and I have installed pex under 1st and 2nd floor houses before so it can be done but that was using a pressurized LP boiler for heat. I don't know if it would work with an OWB because it is vented to atmosphere and you might have a hard time keeping water in the loops that are above the level of the boiler. I would do tube in the basement and a backup forced air furnace or air handler with a water heat exchanger in it. That way you could have central air conditioning in the summer and heat the whole house with the OWB. When I used to work HVAC the most challenging jobs were the ones where the customer had water heat and wanted central air. It is a lot easier and cheaper to put in a furnace and ducts when you are building than it is later down the road. Also if I was building new I would build with those foam core panels for walls as they are very efficient.

Also if I was building new I would build with those foam core panels for walls as they are very efficient.

Although I will sound agumentative through this thread, it is not my intention. The foam foundation blocks can only claim an r-value based on the foam alone as concrete is an inert product. Did you know: you can build a house with 2x12 studs, fill with r-38 insulation, and sheath the outside for the same cost (actually cheaper at this point) as the foam blocks? Then you factor in the cost of the concrete & bar to fill the blocks. Around here the foam blocks are $3.59 per sq ft wall area. Do the math and you will see what I mean. I will continue to sell the foam foundation blocks as long as the need is there,but I often wonder what people are looking for.

Back to the radiant heat: Check this link out:http://www.crete-heat.com/ This is a product I stock that has been getting rave reviews. Saves a lot of steps that are labor intensive.

 

[modn]

I hate to tell you, but my personal experience both at my own house with all hardwood floors/tile in baths and all the houses i've worked in in the last 10 years say that you are wrong. Wood certainly is a thermal mass, maybe not as efficient as cement but it certainly is a mass, just like the furniture that sits on top of it. It is also still more comfortable and cost effective operating wise, than hot water baseboard.

You did make a good point about the additional planning if you go on top of the subfloor, I have yet to see one architect/engineer do that in a new house though.

No argument here, just passing along what the trend of installers around here are saying, I just sell the stuff. I don't know about your area, but the trend here is to go above the subfloor IF you are heating your floors. You already answered the question above: It will work with wood, BUT cement/concrete is far superior. Everyone is always looking to be more efficient/bang for their buck.

 

[AKKAMAAN]

Not in my house, but have it at work. The radiant heat needs a thermal mass to work to its peak potential, wood isn't one of them. If you install under your subfloor and want hardwood floors, good luck finding one to warranty their product. Some engineered flooring do warranty though. Now they have a lot of products to bring the pex above the sub floor, I think the reason above makes this a good option, although planning and extra cost will be factored in. I have many customers that are unhappy with the radiant below the sub floor, but the same customers love it in the concrete.

Will the radiant work on radiant below the sub floor? Sure will, but you will get more from Hot Water baseboard or the pex above the floor with a thermal mass. But don't listen to me go talk to users and ask how much fuel they burn for the year.

Use the Wirsbo Quik Trak system, works great with hard wood floor

 

[AKKAMAAN]

Don't add a lot of thermal mass into floor heating system, IF you want a system that can respond quickly on outdoor temperatur changes....

 

[AOD]

What I'm about to suggest is NOT a real practical idea...


My Grandmother's house was plumbed to be heated with coal fired hot water and cast iron radiators and later converted to an oil boiler.


If I was heating with hot water I would get into collecting cast iron radiators. There are some beautiful units out there.

It would be like a mini wood stove in every room!

No doubt an awful lot of work involved though.

+1 on the radiators. Especially if you're running low pressure steam in them, they'll roast you out! Does anyone even make a wood-fired steam boiler? Couldn't imagine the amount of certifications something like that would have to have.

Its a shame how many old radiators I saw being hauled off for scrap last summer when the prices were way up.