Weil-McLain Snug Cast Iron Baseboard

[nhtreehouse]

I saw some of this cast iron baseboard for $30 per 2 foot section in a salvage shop today. It's 9-3/4" high from the floor when mounted and they had about 15 sections. Might be able to make a offer for a bunch of them, who knows.

I did a little googling and the output is about what you would expect - 570 BTU/HR for each linear foot at 180 degrees F - dropping to 320 BTU/hr at 140 degrees.

Anyone have this stuff installed? FWIW, I ran some cost/BTU/HR numbers on this baseboard at 15$/linear foot and it came up surprisingly close to the cost/BTH/HR for a 500x1000mm panel radiator. Apples to oranges, of course, but my place has no hydronic distribution system whatsoever, so any sort of fruit comparison applies. I can fit PRs so I'm not restricted to baseboard heat emitters.

 

[TCaldwell]

I can't vouch for the snug however in our last house we had ci baseboard of the same dimensions. When we expanded the house we added more, other than the cost it's great. The ci keeps giving long after the zone has stopped calling. At that point I was heating with wood, but no odr, didn't realize how lucky I was with the ci until moving to the next house with single element fin tube. The ci wasn't in the budget but the he2 dual element was, replaced 30 ft in the largest room and that was a major improvement, being able to reduce supply temps and increase comfort. One of the few expenditures in wood the wife could feel a return. As with odr the goal is to constantly supply the emitters with low temp, low flow for constant heat, Tekmar has controllers that have algorithms to optimize different mass emitters that could be helpful if you have solar gain concerns.
John had a good analogy for odr, a tank of gasoline has a exact ammt of energy, as we all know how you drive the car determines how far down the road you will go.