amazer98
New Member
Hi All,
I'm new to this forum and have a question I was hoping you could answer.
Six years ago my wife and I moved into this 1600sf condo in Maine. The heating system was an oil-fired boiler that fed into 4 zones-- one zone for each of the two bedrooms, one zone for the entire common area downstairs (kitchen, dining room, living room, front hallway), and one zone for an indirect water heater.
The common area is at least six times the size of either bedroom, and opens up to a vaulted ceiling with an adjacent loft. In this zone, there are five runs of baseboard totaling perhaps 50-60 feet. The hot water runs from one baseboard to the next (i.e., daisy-chained), so that by the time it reaches the last baseboard it was cooled down considerably.
Even with the oil boiler, which heated up to 198-202 degrees, the house would get a bit chilly on the very coldest days when the outside temps dropped below 10 degrees or so. The system couldn't warm the place more than approximately 68 degrees. Our heating contractor told us there was not enough baseboard in this central zone.
Two years ago natural gas was brought into our town, and we converted to a Veissmann mod con boiler. This unit heats the water to only 171 degrees and can't be adjusted to go any higher. With my Nest thermostat I can see how many hours the boiler runs each day. Even this time of year, when the temps drop only to the low 30s at night (and typically mid 40s in the day), the unit is running 14 or 15 hours to keep the house at 70. On the coldest days, the house gets to only 65 or so. We can increase the temp by turning on our gas fireplace.
Our new heating company says the best fix is to install high-output baseboard and connect it differently. Rather than daisy-chaining the baseboard radiators, he suggested installing a plenum, which would be looped to each of the five baseboards in the zone. That way, each baseboard would get 171 degree water rather than progressively cooler water, as they do now. This upgrade would cost approximately $5K and I am a bit reluctant to spend the money after already 'upgrading' the boiler.
So... my question is: would we significantly cut our gas consumption if we upgraded the baseboards? Maybe the new system would emit heat so much more efficiently that the boiler would need to run only a fraction of the time... I don't know.
Based on what I described, what would you recommend?
I'm new to this forum and have a question I was hoping you could answer.
Six years ago my wife and I moved into this 1600sf condo in Maine. The heating system was an oil-fired boiler that fed into 4 zones-- one zone for each of the two bedrooms, one zone for the entire common area downstairs (kitchen, dining room, living room, front hallway), and one zone for an indirect water heater.
The common area is at least six times the size of either bedroom, and opens up to a vaulted ceiling with an adjacent loft. In this zone, there are five runs of baseboard totaling perhaps 50-60 feet. The hot water runs from one baseboard to the next (i.e., daisy-chained), so that by the time it reaches the last baseboard it was cooled down considerably.
Even with the oil boiler, which heated up to 198-202 degrees, the house would get a bit chilly on the very coldest days when the outside temps dropped below 10 degrees or so. The system couldn't warm the place more than approximately 68 degrees. Our heating contractor told us there was not enough baseboard in this central zone.
Two years ago natural gas was brought into our town, and we converted to a Veissmann mod con boiler. This unit heats the water to only 171 degrees and can't be adjusted to go any higher. With my Nest thermostat I can see how many hours the boiler runs each day. Even this time of year, when the temps drop only to the low 30s at night (and typically mid 40s in the day), the unit is running 14 or 15 hours to keep the house at 70. On the coldest days, the house gets to only 65 or so. We can increase the temp by turning on our gas fireplace.
Our new heating company says the best fix is to install high-output baseboard and connect it differently. Rather than daisy-chaining the baseboard radiators, he suggested installing a plenum, which would be looped to each of the five baseboards in the zone. That way, each baseboard would get 171 degree water rather than progressively cooler water, as they do now. This upgrade would cost approximately $5K and I am a bit reluctant to spend the money after already 'upgrading' the boiler.
So... my question is: would we significantly cut our gas consumption if we upgraded the baseboards? Maybe the new system would emit heat so much more efficiently that the boiler would need to run only a fraction of the time... I don't know.
Based on what I described, what would you recommend?
