Adding zone to a hot water system.
paperhanger
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
Can someone tell me how much it would cost to ADD a zone to a hot water system. Presently the upstairs bedrooms are one 1 continous zone ,about 200 feet in length. The 1st 2 bedrooms are really too warm and the third bedroom is cold. The basement is where the boiler is located and the new piping could be cut into an existing closet on the first floor. Any one have an idea?
Replies
To many variables to get a real answer online. Like; cutting into the boiler piping could be a PIA, or a piece of cheese, separate circulators or zone valves? existing zone controls to handle extra zone or more relays needed?is there glycol in the system?
Then pipe & wire routing is a whole nother question.
Get prices from a P&H contractor.
Baseboard heat?
You got to many fins on the pipes in bed 1 & 2 and not enought in bed 3!
Just pop some fins off 1&2 and add them to 3. Do a few at time till its balanced like it should be.
Tin snips is all you need. cut down to the pipe and twist gently then pop on and twist back.
If you don't have room in bed 3 pipe you can still pop them off 1&2 to reduce the heat output.
You are leaving out lots of important info. So I am assuming that we have hot water system with fintube. Rule of thumb is not to max 75' of fintube on a zone, (fintube, not piping). If your first 2 rooms on the supply are overly warm there could be some small fixes before you repipe.
Shut down the dampners as much as possible in the overly warm rooms.
If that didn't work wrap some tin foil over portions of the fintubes in the warm rooms. Shutting down some of the output in the warm room will push more BTU's to the colder rooms.
Making small zones runs the chance of boiler short cycling. Not good.
Try some of these thing that you could even do tonight.
SlanFin has a free heatloss program that will tell you just how many BTU's you need for each room. And with the water temp will tell how many BTU per foot of fintube you have.
Tend to agree w/ other posters. Need more information. Is this a radiant floor or fin tube baseboard? Is it bare fintube or cabinet style (i.e. w/ dampers)? I take it the loop is continuous through all 3 bedrooms since you don't have a stat/control in each.
Do you have a manifold serving your various zones?
It is a fin tube baseboard system, with a minifold serving the 3 zones. I plan on adding a 4th zone to service the master bed and bath. All 3 bedrooms are oversized rooms and there are also 2 full baths on this zone. The question I really have is, there is about 1400 sq ft being heated with this zone, I think that it is too much for 1 zone and would like to put the master bedroom and bath on a seperate zone. Ballpark figure for doing that.
I just installed a boiler with three zones. The pro gave me an estimate I just didn't have the cash to pay. My old boiler had one circulator and zone valves. I wanted to install circulators for each zone. Pro recommended Taco 007 circs.
When I did my research, I bought a book that had a computer program for sizing circs, flow rates, Delta T, etc. Like you, bedroom zone is over 200 feet, first bedroom always hot, last bedroom always freezing. When I installed the boiler, I left stubouts so I could come back later and split the zone into two.
My software program indicated I should use a Taco 008 pump so I did. When I nfired up the boiler, I discovered that all rooms now have a nice, even, warm temp. Higher flow rate gives lower delta t or higher average temp. Target flow velocities should be min 2 feet per second and max 4. This translates to 3.25 GPM to 6.5 GPM in 3/4 inch tube. According to software, 007 pump would give me 3.7 GPM and 25 degree temperatre drop, the 008 gives 4.7 GPM and about 14 degree drop. I'm thrilled and see no reason to split the zone now.
Talk to your pro about individual circs for each zone.
So you achieved this with just resizing the circulating pump?
Yes, I switched from zone valves to circulators when I replaced the system. I'm not a pro, so I'm not qualified to give advice. I just wanted to point out that I had a similar problem that was fixed without splitting the zone.
You might also have a restriction in the zone plumbing. You probably should have an expert take a look.
I see what you mean with the individual pump zone valve. Can you look at your system and get the Taco model number off your circulators? I think this is what I need. I just looked at the Taco website and need to know the product number. Thanks.
My zone circulator is a Taco 008. Each zone has a taco flowcheck just after the pump to prevent heat migration. My system also has a primary/secondary loop setup, where the boiler loop has its own pump. I am assuming your setup is similar. If not, you won't get the same flow because the pump will have to circulate water through the boiler as well as the zone.