Heat Calc, BTU question

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.

gradwell

New Member
Mar 26, 2008
40
western pa
Just had a heat calc. done for new construction. I have two sets of BTU requirement numbers. The first one is 131,000 BTU. I think this was the supply requirement. The other number was a bit higher and I cant remember the term used for it and I forgot the info at my office. My question is, which one of these numbers do i use to select unit size? As you will quickly learn, I am quite clueless with this stuff and will have many more questions during install. I am concerned as I have to hire someone to install the entire radiant system and boiler. While they are savy with boilers, wood boilers are unheard of in my area and I am worried about the additional knowledge necessary for a successfull install. Primarilly power outages, dump zone etc. Though concerned, I am bound and determined to use wood. Knocked over the trees where my house will go last fall and started cutting and splitting the wood this week. 5 cords cherry split so far. Now just have to decide, Tarm or EKO. Any additional advice appreciated. Otherwise, I will be asking my next question shortly. Thanks for your help
 
My experience is with Tarm , they give good diagrams for piping and have good tech support. They probably could answer alot of your questions . Any heating installer will be able to pipe a wood boiler.
 
Well, when I ran my numbers I came up with the "actual" load, which included the amounts of BB in each room I would need to satisify the load, BUT...That assumed, as always when doing a heat loss, that you are going to have supply water temps at a stable level at all times, i.e. 180 deg., and figuring the heat needed at a certain point, like 70 deg. inside temp at 0 deg. outside temp. But with wood, at least IMHO, your supply temps will vary, depending on the state of the fire, how quickly the system respends to a call for heat, etc. That is why I calculated my load on 160 deg. water, which added approx. 10K BTU to the load, that way I should be safe
 
Status
Not open for further replies.