Hydronic Heating

Posts Tagged ‘pipes’

I am in the process of building a passive heating system for my house. My house has a largish crawl space under a dark grey tin roof, which heats up enormously.
I am thinking about buying small extractor fans and install them so that they channel the hot air from the attic down into the rooms through pipes which exit into the rooms via ceiling ports.
I want to power the fans by solar panels, so that sunshine automatically makes them blow the hot attic air down into the house.
I live in southern NZ, with temperatures, sunshine hours, and intensity comparable to those of Northern California.
What size of solar panel do you reckon I would need to ensure proper functionality?
Thanks for your advice.
I am perfectly open on performance specs of the fan heaters, if necessary, I’ll even build my own. All they need to do is shovel down air. Every little helps.

I have hydronic finned baseboard radiators throughout the 3 floors. I recently replaced a broken Bell & Gossett circulator with a Taco 007. There are 3 return pipes (3 zones). Two of them heat normally, while one return pipe is cold or just warm sometimes. There's little to no heat in the upstairs bedrooms. I purged any air from this zone and it seems to have helped a little, but we're still not getting heat like before. Help!

One month ago I purchased a patio home with hydronic in floor heat. Recently as the electric mini boiler was running and feeding newly heated water through the pipes I noticed that the tiny triangle of my city water gauge was moving ever so slightly. (No other water was being used during this time). Is this indicative of a leak in the piping somewhere or is a miniscule use of water normal? If this is indicative of a leak what should I do next?
The gauge will sit motionless for a while, then it will move a hair or two, then sit motionless again. It keeps doing this while the boiler runs. Also, I've tried turning off the valve to the toilet and it has no effect.

One of the zone control valves in my heating system does not appear to be working. The thermostat is calling for heat, but no water is flowing. If the other thermostats call for heat, the valves seem to open as the pipes above the valve get hot from the water flowing through. The one that appears busted gets luke warm at best. All 4 valves in the system are fed from the same pipe, and the failed valve is the third in the series of 4 along the pipe (and #4 flows fine) so it doesn't appear to be something in the feeder pipe.

Is there anything I can do to try and fix the existing valve, can I replace the valve myself? Would replacing the valve top of the valve (the green/gold portion) possible fix the issue (maybe a problem with the operation of the piston? Is there anything I ahve to do before removing the valve top aside from removing power to the valve?

I've got this house. No heating system, and I need to redo the electricals. I am NOT going to sell it, so I'm thinking long-term.

I've been thinking outside the box, and it seems running PEX pipe with water, attached to a pump and a thermostat, would be the most comfortable, most reasonably-priced, and most efficient method of keeping the place warm.

I'm not interested in gas heating, and everything electrical means all sorts of vents, and ducts, and expensive systems.

What do I need to know about radiant heating before I start planning? What pitfalls can I avoid with the foresight of your experience?

And while I'm asking, is it possible to have 'radiant cooling' by having pipes that run cool water above the ceilings?

Thanks, everybody.

I have 20+ yr old standard electric baseboard heaters in my summer home which are pointy, ugly and starting to rust. The house is infrequently used in the winter and we keep the thermostat at 45 to prevent the pipes bursting. I thought I could just replace the outside covers but guess the whole unit needs replacing. I've run across standard units for less than but also found "hydronic" ones that are over 0. Why are they so expensive, what's the difference b/w these and standard units and is the technology really worth the extra cost? If we buy the hydronic units, how easy is it to swap out the old ones? Do we need an HVAC guy? Will the thermostat for the old units still work withthe new ones?