Heat Transfer Plates

[dualectician]

I know there is much debate on this subject but I am in the middle of installing above the floor radiant "sandwich style" on below the 2nd floor "staple up /with possible heat transfer plates". I will be heating this all with a 150 BTU gasser with 1000 gallons of storage. I was wondering if anyone has found a good place to purchase heat transfer plates . I thank you all ahead of time!

BTW this is my first post here , I been reading everything for years but have never posted .
Thanks Again
Brian

 

[Floydian]

Hello and welcome Brian,

I really don't see any debate from heating pro's. Heat transfer plates will outperform naked tubes-period. What it really comes down to is how much heat you need to transfer to keep your house at the desired indoor temp at you outdoor design temp. This points right to an accurate room by room heat loss calculation. Once you have this then all the different aspects to designing a good working system are pretty easy.

I am a little confused here:

I am in the middle of installing above the floor radiant "sandwich style" on below the 2nd floor "staple up /with possible heat transfer plates".

Do you mean either sandwich OR staple up for the 2nd floor? Either way plates are where its at IMO but what type of plates (stamped vs extruded$) comes back to the heat loss calculation and the overall thickness and R value of the material above the plates and the water temps you want to supply.

FWIW, I used 9.5" x 24" lightweight stamped plates (Newland) installed 12" o.c. above the subfloor.I bought these and all of my system components from Rob @ http://nrtradiant.com/index.html . Top notch guy that really knows his stuff. I could have payed less buying online but the support I received far outweighed any savings IMO.

Your install sounds pretty similar to mine-check out the link in my signature for more details.

Good luck,

Noah

 

[DaveBP]

Another choice.

http://www.blueridgecompany.com/radiant/hydronic/316/rht-heat-transfer-plates

Thicker stock than a lot of others. The more you can spread the heat out over the surface of your floor, the faster the heat can enter the room.
I believe you will be able to use lower water temps than without plates, also.

 

[Floydian]

Oh yeah, here is another plate worth checking out: http://www.wattsradiant.com/products/flexplate/ .

These look like they would be a whole lot easier to install in a staple up install vs extruded plates and the performance looks really good. Not sure how they price out though.

Noah

 

[mmudd]

Check out UP solar solutions -Tom Sullivan. He rolls these out to whatever size pipe you will use. Ihave used them and they fit very well and are priced below some of the others. They are also 6" wide vs the 4" models which are common. I hightly recommend them.

http://www.aluminum-solar-absorbers.com/solar-absorbers-tips-tricks.html