baseboards=less btu's vs forced air?

[barnartist]

I really wanted to put radiant heat into the rest of my house-I love the comfort and really like how it takes such a small amoutn of heat vs my forced air unit. I can really see my storage tanks temperature drop everytime my furnace kicks on. My problem is the remainder of my house has finished drywall in the basement ceiling, add to that lots of plumbing and wide ductwork.
My only other solution(I think) is to use baseboards. But I certainly do not want to do all of this if I don't save any wood (again vs the forced air exchanger). I also wonder about things like a couch that have to sit in front of a baseboard.

Any thoughts appreciated.

 

[magnumhntr]

Does baseboard have to be mounted on the exterior walls, or can they be mounted in interiors?

 

[Como]

Use radiators, not quite radiant but better than forced air.

Use Radiant Baseboad

With radiant you can run lower temperatures because you fel warmer compared to hot air.

 

[Gooserider]

Also note that there are some baseboards that are better than others at putting out heat at lower water temperatures. In addition the more baseboard you put in, the lower the water temperature you can run, as the total BTU output can be had by either fewer feet at a higher BTU/ft output, or more feet at a lower BTU / ft value - since the lower the water temperature you can use, the better your storage will work, it is good to use as many feet as you can.

Lastly, while I think they look kind of tacky, the radiant panel type heaters do put out a lot of heat at very low water temps, and can be a good approach as an alternative to baseboard.

Gooserider

 

[flyingcow]

Or get into really serious renovation work and rip up flooring. Put in a warm board subfloor, for in floor radiant heat. You will be able to run your water temps lower than a staple up system.

 

[barnartist]

Would that not raise my floor level quite a bit? What can be run lower than staple up is new to me...

 

[fowlerrudi]

Warmboard would replace the subfloor.

 

[Gooserider]

Would that not raise my floor level quite a bit? What can be run lower than staple up is new to me...

Warmboard is an alternative to your standard subfloor, mostly used in new construction, but it can be put in as a replacement if one strips the existing floor down to the joists and builds back up w/ Warmboard. Because it replaces your existing subfloor, rather than sitting on top of it, it should have little or no effect on your floor level. Because the tubing fits into grooves in the WB rather than under it, you are not pushing the heat through as much floor thickness as you are w/ staple-up, and thus in theory would not need as much heat in the water to get the same level of BTU's out of the floor.

Gooserider

 

[barnartist]

OK I went to a website for that type of flooring. Looks super if I could start from scratch as Goos said.
Just a thought-has anyone been happy with a radiant ceiling? This sounds like a heat waste, but I thought I would see what you all think.

 

[barnartist]

You know, forget that I even asked about radiant ceiling.

 

[rkusek]

I really wanted to put radiant heat into the rest of my house-I love the comfort and really like how it takes such a small amoutn of heat vs my forced air unit. I can really see my storage tanks temperature drop everytime my furnace kicks on. My problem is the remainder of my house has finished drywall in the basement ceiling, add to that lots of plumbing and wide ductwork.
My only other solution(I think) is to use baseboards. But I certainly do not want to do all of this if I don't save any wood (again vs the forced air exchanger). I also wonder about things like a couch that have to sit in front of a baseboard.

Any thoughts appreciated.

The warmboard is pretty pricey if I remember right. About $180 for a 4x8 sheet. I came across an old forum when planning to build our house [url/]http://www.greenbuildingtalk.com/Forums/tabid/53/forumid/12/tpage/3/view/Topic/postid/23269/Default.aspx[/url]
That had some good conversation on the pros and cons. The only real con I saw was the price about $5.60 sq ft. but a small portion of that would be spent on conventional subfloor material. I believe they said it cost about $12,000 additional on a 2400 sq ft home vs. conventional construction. I couldn't justify that cost since I needed cooling anyway plus the builders around here have no idea what it is or radiant heat is for that matter.

This will be my first winter in new house with wood HX in the forced air heat pump setup. I'm disheartened that you really see the tank temp drop when furnace kicks in. I just buried the lines this week and have some plumbing to finish on both ends to even run without storage. I hope to still have a 1000 gal propane tank in service before winter really hits to help with the efficiency and make it easier on myself. Down the road I may look into some staple up using the aluminum plates under the tiled areas since basement ceiling is still unfinished but I too have ductwork blocking some portions. Not sure if it would be worth putting under carpeted areas based on what I've read. It would have been nice if I could have convinced my wife to put radiant in the basement slab but we were going too fast to beat winter (Oct '08) and the builder had no experience with this.

 

[flyingcow]

Sometimes you have to run staple up radiant as high as 120ish. Depends on the situation. Warm board or copycat types might go as low as 80.

 

[barnartist]

I failed to mention that I already have most of the hardware to install the radiant. I need one more roll of pex and also the transfer plates. I just dread the project because of the mess I will make tearing out the drywall.

Huskers, I hope I did not worry you too much here. You will see a huge difference in your system if you went without storage last season and now you are adding 1000 gallons. That is what I have but they are twin 500 tanks. My eko would never run smoothly without storage with my forced air setup. My goal is to stretch out the loading between tank charges.
Also, half of my house already has radiant, and it is all carpeted. I love it. I did not use transfer plates either, but I did staple up the foil bubble stuff under the loops with an 1"1/2 air gap. It probably does respond slowly, but again, I like it so well that I am willing to put it in the rest of my home vs forced air. The radiant side can be 5-7 degrees F different on the temperature gauges, and we are we feel so much warmer on the radiant side. To continue, I have a wireless temp probe on my storage tanks. I can watch the temp drop in tenths of degrees with the radiant floor running, and then when the forced air kicks on it drops like 1-3 degrees at a time.

 

[rkusek]

I failed to mention that I already have most of the hardware to install the radiant. I need one more roll of pex and also the transfer plates. I just dread the project because of the mess I will make tearing out the drywall.

Huskers, I hope I did not worry you too much here. You will see a huge difference in your system if you went without storage last season and now you are adding 1000 gallons. That is what I have but they are twin 500 tanks. My eko would never run smoothly without storage with my forced air setup. My goal is to stretch out the loading between tank charges.
Also, half of my house already has radiant, and it is all carpeted. I love it. I did not use transfer plates either, but I did staple up the foil bubble stuff under the loops with an 1"1/2 air gap. It probably does respond slowly, but again, I like it so well that I am willing to put it in the rest of my home vs forced air. The radiant side can be 5-7 degrees F different on the temperature gauges, and we are we feel so much warmer on the radiant side. To continue, I have a wireless temp probe on my storage tanks. I can watch the temp drop in tenths of degrees with the radiant floor running, and then when the forced air kicks on it drops like 1-3 degrees at a time.

You just brightened my day. Glad to hear it works that well with the carpet and no aluminum material. Also, you are saying only the 1/4" bubble foil no fiberglass underneath that? That sounds like it would be relativity inexpensive and easy to install to me. Might be the best solution in your case as well if the only big expense is re-doing the ceiling. Is your basement ceiling high enough for the lowered ceiling material. That may also be an option. I would prefer that anyway to have access in case I ever need it although it may not look as nice as a drywalled ceiling. A buddy of mine had his basement finished a few years ago and they used panels where the metal was maybe a 1/4 or 1/3 the width of the usual supports commonly used which I thought look much nicer. That's what I was leaning toward when I finish the basement in a few years.

I've seen the long aluminum "troughs" at Menards that have the channel for the Pex but I believe those will make the "tick tick" noise when the heat up. The smaller more sofisticated more expensive plates don't have this problem from what I've read. Anyone have any input on this? Maybe the staple up with plenty of storage is the way to go since we have the forced air that can handle response issues when coming home to a cold house. I'm really glad to hear your radiant works that well. I think I will go with a cheaper HX for the forced air and work on the staple up throughout the winter. I think the wife will "see the light" if I start with our bathroom. Oh, for the record this will actually be our first winter in the house but I did heat my 30x60 pole barn with the EKO 40 from about Jan-Mar last winter.

 

[Tony H]

I have thought about putting baseboard or panels in a couple of bathrooms so they can be turned up a bit at times and maybe installing more later for the economy
and ability to run up to the second floor. I like radiant much better and grew up in a house with in floor radiant and the warm floors was very comfortable.
I took a look and talked to some people in Ireland where radiant is heavily used and found they don't seem to worry much about furniture location they just give it enough clearance so the heat can rise.

Don't be too worried about running with out storage lots of people do it
I am running an EKO with a HX in my forced air furnace and no storage and it has no problem keeping the house (2800sf) at 72 and plenty of hot water also.
The original house was built in the 40's with a large addition in 2003 and so the old part about 60% is not insulated that well.

 

[barnartist]

No fiberglass under the bubble wrap. I did ask the carpet installer to give me a pad with the lowest available r value, so that should be noted. Your wife will love the bathroom radiant.

 

[rowerwet]

I will be putting 6' of baseboard into my bathroom with a direct connection to the stove loop, it will just have plain quarter turn on off, this will replace my electric bathroom heater.

 

[heaterman]

We sell a lot of panel radiators. They provide comfort far above forced air and are true variable output heating machines. The basic control set up is a thermostatic radiator valve on each panel which gives you room to room temp control without running wires, zone valves or multiple circs. From experience I'd say their heat output is about 60% convective air flow and 40% radiant energy. One customer that we did a combo radiant floor and panel rad system for said the he wouldn'r have bothered with the floor if he knew how well the panel rads worked. Piping is extremely simple and they are not all that expensive especially when you consider that once the basics are in place you can add to the system over whatever period of time you choose.

check them out here www.hydronicalternatives.com

An average system consists of nothing more than this:
1-15-58 Grundfos $65
1- 10 loop Stainless Steel Viega manifold,valved, $435
1-1000' roll 1/2" ViegaPex tubing $415
10 panel rads at avg price of $275 $2750
misc main piping (depends on job requirements) $250
10 TRV's $37 $370
As you can see the total for an average house is less than $4.5K and once the basic piping and manifold is in place a person could do the whole project over a period of years if he wanted to.

Variable output heating, simple to install, radiant+convective heat, far less wall space than BB, circulate over 100,000 btu's easily on only 85 watts of power, room by room temp control, provides a steady load on your boiler not on/off, installation is so easy even I can do it. What's not to like???

 

[barnartist]

Well heaterman, If I could do one room with that setup it would really help. The room is a 19x12, and the 19' part is an exterior wall, while the other 3 walls are interior. Could you kindly come up with an estimate for such a project? If I did one room and was pleased with the results as you said one of your customers was, maybe there would be more to be done in some of my basement rooms later on.

 

[barnartist]

I should mention that room has two windows both 40x60", and the walls are 2x4 fiberglass. Standard 8' ceiling.

 

[heaterman]

Well heaterman, If I could do one room with that setup it would really help. The room is a 19x12, and the 19' part is an exterior wall, while the other 3 walls are interior. Could you kindly come up with an estimate for such a project? If I did one room and was pleased with the results as you said one of your customers was, maybe there would be more to be done in some of my basement rooms later on.

Got a heat loss for that room or do you want me to ballpark it? Whatever the loss is, a room that size can be done with a single large unit or a pair of smaller ones. I'd guess that unless you have really poor insulation or gobs of windows you can probably heat it with 6500-7000 btu's easily.

 

[barnartist]

I don't have a heatloss, so ballpark it. Again, only those twin 40x60" windows, 2x4 fiberglass wall, and the ceilings are r-40. only the 19' wall is an outside wall, the other 3 are interioe walls.

 

[Tony H]

We sell a lot of panel radiators. They provide comfort far above forced air and are true variable output heating machines. The basic control set up is a thermostatic radiator valve on each panel which gives you room to room temp control without running wires, zone valves or multiple circs. From experience I'd say their heat output is about 60% convective air flow and 40% radiant energy. One customer that we did a combo radiant floor and panel rad system for said the he wouldn'r have bothered with the floor if he knew how well the panel rads worked. Piping is extremely simple and they are not all that expensive especially when you consider that once the basics are in place you can add to the system over whatever period of time you choose.

check them out here www.hydronicalternatives.com

An average system consists of nothing more than this:
1-15-58 Grundfos $65
1- 10 loop Stainless Steel Viega manifold,valved, $435
1-1000' roll 1/2" ViegaPex tubing $415
10 panel rads at avg price of $275 $2750
misc main piping (depends on job requirements) $250
10 TRV's $37 $370
As you can see the total for an average house is less than $4.5K and once the basic piping and manifold is in place a person could do the whole project over a period of years if he wanted to.

Variable output heating, simple to install, radiant+convective heat, far less wall space than BB, circulate over 100,000 btu's easily on only 85 watts of power, room by room temp control, provides a steady load on your boiler not on/off, installation is so easy even I can do it. What's not to like???

Your plan above would work great for my house and I can do it over several years starting with the bathrooms and kids play area in the basement where there is no heat at all. Thanks for the info

 

[heaterman]

We sell a lot of panel radiators. They provide comfort far above forced air and are true variable output heating machines. The basic control set up is a thermostatic radiator valve on each panel which gives you room to room temp control without running wires, zone valves or multiple circs. From experience I'd say their heat output is about 60% convective air flow and 40% radiant energy. One customer that we did a combo radiant floor and panel rad system for said the he wouldn'r have bothered with the floor if he knew how well the panel rads worked. Piping is extremely simple and they are not all that expensive especially when you consider that once the basics are in place you can add to the system over whatever period of time you choose.

check them out here www.hydronicalternatives.com

An average system consists of nothing more than this:
1-15-58 Grundfos $65
1- 10 loop Stainless Steel Viega manifold,valved, $435
1-1000' roll 1/2" ViegaPex tubing $415
10 panel rads at avg price of $275 $2750
misc main piping (depends on job requirements) $250
10 TRV's $37 $370
As you can see the total for an average house is less than $4.5K and once the basic piping and manifold is in place a person could do the whole project over a period of years if he wanted to.

Variable output heating, simple to install, radiant+convective heat, far less wall space than BB, circulate over 100,000 btu's easily on only 85 watts of power, room by room temp control, provides a steady load on your boiler not on/off, installation is so easy even I can do it. What's not to like???

Your plan above would work great for my house and I can do it over several years starting with the bathrooms and kids play area in the basement where there is no heat at all. Thanks for the info

Look me up at (broken link removed) or send me a PM from here if you need help. Panel rads with pex tube and a single manifold make for a really simple system.

 

[Irish]

Hi all ... first post to this forum (haven't even finished setting up my profile yet) ... just discovered this site a few days ago and this thread in particular caught my eye. I'm right in the middle of trying to upgrade my hybrid system and the panel radiator idea might be exactly what I've been looking for as a short term (and maybe long term) solution. I put radiant heat in about 1/4 of the house and ran it off my direct vent DHW heater as a backup to the 45 year old Sears & Robuck forced air gas furnace which simply won't die. Last year I used wood for probably 60% of the heating (just convection, no hot water), another 25% from a Harman pellet stove (which I sold), and the rest from the old Sears Diehard - as I like to call it. I got my hands on a wall mounted Trinity modulating gas boiler but I have a ways to go before I get everything hooked up, and I don't have the PEX installed under the rest of the floor yet. The panel radiators sound like they could be worked into zones I have planned (though I'm guessing I'll want to keep them separate from the underfloor radiant loops so I can fine-tune water temps and heat output), and by coincidence I had to tear out some of the baseboard floor moulding to do some remodeling and I've been debating whether to slap on some of the cheap cardboard-like fake mopboard they sell at Home Depot or spend the $ on some real hardwood trim. The panel radiators might solve 2 problems at the same time. My wife loves the radiant floor but she's already missing how nice the heat coming off the Harman felt, and it hasn't even gotten below freezing yet! I think some panel radiators strategically placed kicking out heat here and there could convince her that all the time I've spent trying to perfect a comfortable and green heating system was worth it. And, by another coincidence, I think I met you, Heaterman, at the Mich Energy Fair in Onekema this summer at the Garn display. I'm still saving for my Garn (and more solar panels, better storage, etc, etc), but in the meantime I'll definitely give you a call or stop in to get more info on the baseboard radiant panels. I have a million questions ... time to do some more reading here and then ask for some ideas/help on a new thread or two. Thanks for all the great info.