heat loss calculatotr

[ffspeed]

Do I need to do a heat loss, to put in baseboard heater, or is that just to find out what size boiler to put in.

 

[Gooserider]

Do I need to do a heat loss, to put in baseboard heater, or is that just to find out what size boiler to put in.

How do you know what size baseboard to put in with out the heat loss number? Essentially, you should ideally do a room by room heat loss, and then put in baseboard in each room to match your heat loss calcs. Otherwise you run the risk of getting rooms that are over / under heated...

Also it might be worth looking into alternatives to BB - as BB tends to need much hotter water to heat well than other methods, and in general you want the lowest temperature water you can manage for good efficiency and to get the most out of any thermal storage. I'd look at cast iron rads, flat panels, or in floor radiant LONG before I'd do baseboard... If I did do baseboard, I'd still do the heat loss, but I would figure my room lengths using the lowest output temperature the manufacturer had specs for.

Gooserider

 

[ffspeed]

In the beginning I looked at floor radiant heat. But I was told it won't work for my setup, because all my floors are hard wood floors. As for the rad panels, I don't even know what they are. I just hear about them this week on this forum. And I already have the baseboard heater. When I bought the house, there was about 150 ft of 3/4 '' heaters in the garage.
I downloaded a calculator, but it came out in watts instead of btu. I am kind of lost right now till I figure of the differance.

 

[tom in maine]

If you have a heat load in watts, one watt equals 3.413 btus. If you know the baseboard make, you can look up the rating per foot.
It is on the box, if the boxes are there. Baseboard ratings are usually made for 180F water. Ratings for lower water temps are available on the manufacturer's website.

 

[Gooserider]

In the beginning I looked at floor radiant heat. But I was told it won't work for my setup, because all my floors are hard wood floors. As for the rad panels, I don't even know what they are. I just hear about them this week on this forum. And I already have the baseboard heater. When I bought the house, there was about 150 ft of 3/4 '' heaters in the garage.
I downloaded a calculator, but it came out in watts instead of btu. I am kind of lost right now till I figure of the differance.

A flat panel is essentially the modern day version of the old cast iron radiators - they are very popular in the EU, and are becoming more so in the US... Essentially they are large flat panels with water channels in them that are installed in the same kind of places where you might see a C.I. rad... The functional difference is that baseboards are primarily convection heaters, that work by heating the air and encouraging it to circulate, which is somewhat inefficient, and requires fairly high temperature water to work.

Flat panels and C.I. Radiators do some convection heating, but much more of their heat comes from direct radiation of infrared, which warms the objects in the room (like people) without needing to heat the air in between... Difference is kind of like that between your car heater and a radiant style wood stove... Because of this difference, it is often possible to run flat panels on much lower temperature water and stay comfortable, especially in shoulder season when the heat demand is less.

However if you have the BB, already, it does make sense to use at least as much as you have, and then possibly make up the difference w/ other types.

Oh, and my favorite website for issues like you mentioned of getting an answer in the wrong system is convert-me.com. They offer many different pages depending on what you are trying to convert, for this you need THIS page.... just fill in the blank for the value that you know (Watt/hours) and hit enter, and the page will convert to all the other units...

Gooserider