i am sure this has been answered, but i cannot find it- sorry. have just put up a 16x20' bc greenhouse
http://www.bcgreenhouses.com/cc/pacific_series_poly.php
and i would like to link it into the wood furnace that is in tandem with an oil boiler in the basement. the house is pex from a manifold to two heating zones, hydronics, but i would like to heat the g.h. with pex only. is this possible? i am not a whiz at this and tho i know how my hot water heating system works it still mystifies me at times. i can visualize the hydronics in the greenhouse and see how it would heat fine, but i would really like just one pex loop that was not so subject to freezing and bursting. the pex could just be in a big loop de loop on the g.h. floor gravel and i could put duck boards over it for walking.
freezing and burst copper has happened in the house twice and is fairly awful. how much pex would i need, say 1" coiled, to heat this greenhouse to about 45 f? we are in maine and it gets down to 0 f, or a bit less, now and then, but we spend a lot of time in the teens and twenties. basically i just don't want to get a freeze in the greenshouse. we are looking to have winter veggies. i really don't know how well the two-wall polycarb does r value-wise. thought i would insulate the bottom two feet and north wall with 1" silver back foam. i don't mind if the system runs a lot of the time; my wood boiler tends to overheat and put itself out if i don't keep the fire restricted. my thought was that i could just put a circulating pump on the output of the wood boiler and run it to the g.h. in a trench. the trench will be about 40'. there is already such a set up on the wood boiler output that kicks in to divert hot water to one of my house zones when the furnace gets raging.
i realize this question is rather broad, but a good estimate from someone who may have done this in a similar climate would be appreciated. oh, i will be growing in 2' deep cedar boxes set up off the gravel on 4x4's. at some point there will also be a 2 person japanese soaking hot tub in the greenhouse; this will add a bit of heat also. i am thinking of building a tub from cedar and hooking pex to it and keeping it at about 102 f. thanks for listening. don e.
http://www.forseyengland.com/BCgreenhouse.html
http://www.bcgreenhouses.com/cc/pacific_series_poly.php
and i would like to link it into the wood furnace that is in tandem with an oil boiler in the basement. the house is pex from a manifold to two heating zones, hydronics, but i would like to heat the g.h. with pex only. is this possible? i am not a whiz at this and tho i know how my hot water heating system works it still mystifies me at times. i can visualize the hydronics in the greenhouse and see how it would heat fine, but i would really like just one pex loop that was not so subject to freezing and bursting. the pex could just be in a big loop de loop on the g.h. floor gravel and i could put duck boards over it for walking.
freezing and burst copper has happened in the house twice and is fairly awful. how much pex would i need, say 1" coiled, to heat this greenhouse to about 45 f? we are in maine and it gets down to 0 f, or a bit less, now and then, but we spend a lot of time in the teens and twenties. basically i just don't want to get a freeze in the greenshouse. we are looking to have winter veggies. i really don't know how well the two-wall polycarb does r value-wise. thought i would insulate the bottom two feet and north wall with 1" silver back foam. i don't mind if the system runs a lot of the time; my wood boiler tends to overheat and put itself out if i don't keep the fire restricted. my thought was that i could just put a circulating pump on the output of the wood boiler and run it to the g.h. in a trench. the trench will be about 40'. there is already such a set up on the wood boiler output that kicks in to divert hot water to one of my house zones when the furnace gets raging.
i realize this question is rather broad, but a good estimate from someone who may have done this in a similar climate would be appreciated. oh, i will be growing in 2' deep cedar boxes set up off the gravel on 4x4's. at some point there will also be a 2 person japanese soaking hot tub in the greenhouse; this will add a bit of heat also. i am thinking of building a tub from cedar and hooking pex to it and keeping it at about 102 f. thanks for listening. don e.
http://www.forseyengland.com/BCgreenhouse.html
