Floor heating capacity of the Garn 1500

[ANDRE V]

Hi everyone

We are planning to install a Garn 1500 to supply in-floor radiant heat to our well insulated cordwood house in southermost Quebec. The floor area will be 1600 sq.ft. although I suspect a fair portion of that will require little or no heat.
My wife and I plan on operating greenhouses that would operate 12 months a year. Obviously, they will require heat for a good portion of the year. My question is: does anyone have experience or information as to how much floor space could be heated with the Garn 1500? Our wood supply will be abundant and cost us very little. We experience approx. 4200 heating degree days in our region.

 

[Floydian]

Hello Andre,

It all comes down to your heat load. Once you have a good idea of how many btus you need and what the lowest usable temp you can supply to cover your heat load, it becomes easy to figure how much time you will have between burns. Here are couple heat loss calculators you can play with:

http://www.builditsolar.com/References/Calculators/HeatLoss/HeatLoss.htm

This site has some really cool calculators beside this one:

http://www.borstengineeringconstruction.com/Heat_Loss_Analysis_Calculator.html

As far as HDD's(heating degree days) we avg ~5300 here in the VA mountains. Not sure about your 4200 HDD in Quebec but I know they do things different in Canada


Noah

 

[ANDRE V]

Hello Andre,

It all comes down to your heat load. Once you have a good idea of how many btus you need and what the lowest usable temp you can supply to cover your heat load, it becomes easy to figure how much time you will have between burns. Here are couple heat loss calculators you can play with:

http://www.builditsolar.com/References/Calculators/HeatLoss/HeatLoss.htm

This site has some really cool calculators beside this one:

http://www.borstengineeringconstruction.com/Heat_Loss_Analysis_Calculator.html

As far as HDD's(heating degree days) we avg ~5300 here in the VA mountains. Not sure about your 4200 HDD in Quebec but I know they do things different in Canada
View attachment 141126

Noah

Thank you, Noah.
I appreciate the information in your reply and I will certainly follow up on these leads.
I probably miscalculated the 12 month total for heating degree days as I was adding totals on a bar graph. None the less, it still appears to be in the 4500-4700 degree days range. A weather station in Newport, VT, less than 5 miles away, reports 4760 degree days a year. Is it possible your higher elevation accounts for your higher number? Or perhaps the total included cooling degree days also? In any case, as you suggest, once the heating demand is determined for the purpose we have in mind, it will come down to feeding the beast often enough to maintain a minimum water temperature.

Thanks again,
Andre V.

 

[Floydian]

Hmm, well I am no HDD expert but the numbers you are finding are quite different than what I am finding. Perhaps a different base temp? Everything I see is using base 65 or 18.

Here is the last year of weather history for Newport, VT as per www.wunderground.com :

http://www.wunderground.com/history...014&req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA

They show 8468 HDD which is definitely in the ballpark for Climate Zone 6A. I am in CZ 4A although I think we are actually closer to CZ 5 in reality-because of our elevation as you mentioned.

Noah

 

[heaterman]

Andre, I would recommend getting in touch with Chris Holley from Floor Heat Systems. He is extremely knowledgeable about projects such as yours and is the Garn rep for your area.
He's a straight shooter and will tell you plainly if something will work or not.

call him at 207-420-2202

 

[PassionForFire&Water]

Station:Frelighsburg, QB, CA (72.86W,45.05N)
2014 - 8498 HDD
2013 - 7689 HDD
2012 - 6930 HDD

 

[ANDRE V]

When Noah remarked that we do things differently in Canada, he was quite right. I had assumed that the HDD figures I was looking up were in the Farenheit Scale, but of course in Canada everything now is listed in Celsius. My apologies.
Incidentally, I have been in touch with Chris Holley at Dectra Corp. and we have ironed out quite a few details. Thanks everyone.