I suspect I won’t be able to provide enough info to get a complete answer but maybe I can get pointed in the right direction. Or maybe I’ll get lucky here 🙂
I have a forced air system which is heater with water coils in the air handler. These coils are fed from a Utica boiler. The air handler blows air over the water coils instead of a ceramic heating element.
The plumber that installed it is out of the picture and I am left wondering if he tuned the system properly. In particular I am wondering what the water temperature should be with such a setup. He has it set at 180 which is the standard for baseboard heat as I understand. But I don’t know if he just did that out of habit and whether the water in this kind of setup should be hotter.
I have never had forced air before so I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like. But when it’s blowing, it does not really feel “warm”. Although it does warm up the house so it’s not cold either. But when I try to get the house from 52 to 68 it takes hours and I thought forced air was supposed to heat the house up quickly
(it is a fairly large house though – 3700 sq ft. With two zones – one upstairs and one down. and it is a very open plan with alot of free air communication between first and second level due to large loft openings.
Thanx
Bill
Replies
180 is pretty common.
Water at sea level boils at 212 degrees. The higher the contained pressure the higher the boiling temp is.
The last thing you want a hot water boiler to do is boil the water.
Without knowing the parameters of the system I cannot recommend a temperature change.
I would look in the boilers owners manual to see what the specs & recommendations are.
You have three variables: Water temp, air speed, and heat exchanger size. Likely you have a bit too much air speed for the size of the heat exchanger.The fact that the incoming air is so cold also comes into play.
Warming up a 3700 sq ft house from 52 to 68 takes A LOT of energy. A "properly sized" heating system will indeed take a long time to do this. If you want to do this regularly the heating system should have been oversized.
The coils used in your system, if like mine, will have a maximum temperature stated on the coil or in the literature. Mine is 180 degrees. How well sealed is the house?
The house is brand new and pretty well built so it should be reasonably well sealed.
Thanx
Bill
Bill, take some time and go into the attic, lift some insulation around bathrooms and look for oversized or extra holes that are unsealed. Unfortunately it is terribly common to have lots of leakage into the attic. Probably the single most important way to manage energy usage. (is to seal these openings) Rich
Edited 1/3/2008 7:04 pm ET by rlrefalo
Do you mean around stack vents and light/fan units? I suppose you have a point.
Yes around any penetration. My own house (I didn't build it) had the top plate drilled for 2 inch vents and the holes were not used, no sealing around wires, no draft stopping around shower dropped soffits,no airtight or even IC downlights, etc. etc. And this was a large and recent addition.There are apparently lots of people who know how to make things look good but few who actually care about building well. Rich
But the inspector did an insulation inspection - LOL :-)
Thanx for the advice
Yeah, mine too!!!
Once again, it SHOULD take several hours for a modern house to warm up from 52 to 68. A furnace is properly sized when it's running almost continuously on the coldest day of the year. In a well-insulated house this means a fairly small furnace, one that's not capable of rapidly warming a cold house.