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mrdsilverstein
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Posts:2
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| 02/26/2006 3:58 PM |
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I live in the Northeast and a few months ago I had a plumber retrofit a split system with radiant heat downstairs and baseboard upstairs running off of a Munchkin propane boiler. Besides some loud pipes which needed to be remounted the upstairs baseboard heaters run fine and get very hot very quick.
The radiant downstairs is consuming a lot of propane and barely keeping the place above 60 degrees when its cold out. My total downstairs square feet is 900 which is split into three zones, one for a kitchen with tile, one for a back office with red oak floors and one for a living room with red oak floors. The living room has a cathedral ceiling and is half the downstairs about 450'. He ran three runs of the tubing for the living room and one each for the two other rooms. It is installed under the sub-floor between the joists using pex clips (not heat transfer plates) and 3/8 inch Wirsbo tubing. The circulator is a TACO with an rtm of 3250.
1- is 3/8" tubing definately undersized for the job?
2- Does under subfloor between joists radiant definately need heat transfer plates to get the heat through the wood?
3-Is the circulator too small? |
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Unregistered
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Posts:2321
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| 02/26/2006 8:24 PM |
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Without doing a heat loss analysis of your home there is no way to tell if the tubing or circulator is undersized. As far as the joist heating, no, you don't have to use transfer plates if the heat loss analysis shows that the room can be heated without them. The most important thing about an under subfloor install is that the joist space is insulated and there is a minimum 2" space between the top of the insulation and the underside of the subfloor.
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mrdsilverstein
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Posts:2
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| 02/26/2006 10:46 PM |
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| Thank you I will do a complete heat loss analysys. Also the plumber had me use for insulation between the joists in the crawlspace, r19 fiberglass with kraft-paper, facing upwards and spaced 2" from the tubing and then under that 3" foil faced high density foam nailed to the bottom of the joists and taped. Will the kraft paper reflect the radiant heat upward? or can only foil faced product reflect heat? |
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NRT.Rob
Registered Users
Posts:386
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| 02/27/2006 2:11 PM |
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your issue has nothing to do with the tubing size unless the loops are too long to push flow through.
lack of plates or water temperatures that are too low are the most likely culprits. however a heat load calc will be able to tell you whether or not the adjustments will solve the problem, I expect.
-=Northeast Radiant Technology, LLC=-
www.NRTradiant.com |
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-=Northeast Radiant Technology=-
NRTradiant.com |
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Unregistered
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Posts:2321
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| 02/27/2006 7:33 PM |
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Thank you for the response. What is the easiest way to do a Heat Loss Analasis?
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NRT.Rob
Registered Users
Posts:386
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| 02/28/2006 10:51 AM |
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well, www.heatinghelp.com has a free heat load calculator. it's a little conservative but using it can give you an idea of what your loads are and I believe it can even let you know what water temps you may need. If not you can post the info you do get for comment.
-=Northeast Radiant Technology, LLC=-
www.NRTradiant.com |
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-=Northeast Radiant Technology=-
NRTradiant.com |
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Unregistered
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Posts:2321
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| 02/28/2006 10:25 PM |
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I will let you know how it goes. I have someone whos credentials i verifed who specializes coming over to assess heat loss and recommend adjustments to system. With the space being only 850' i think we can solve this with basic grasp on needs of space.
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