heat circulation on cold days

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tcalo
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Post by tcalo » Sat. Jan. 15, 2022 8:50 am

I'm just curious what many here do? We have baseboard hot water heat, but our coal stove handles the brunt of the heating through winter. When the temperature dips really low here (teens to single digits for Long Island) I bump my heat on. Our stove is more than capable of heating our entire house comfortably, I mainly do it to keep the pipes warm. If I needed to turn the heat on, I don't want all that cool water in the pipes circulating through a hot boiler. I think that's just a recipe for damage! Like I said, just curious what others do on really cold days?

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Sat. Jan. 15, 2022 8:51 am

What you are doing is exactly what I used to do.

 
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CoalisCoolxWarm
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Post by CoalisCoolxWarm » Sat. Jan. 15, 2022 9:17 am

Are you saying you have a hot air coal stove and then you have some kind of boiler for the hydronics? What heats the hot water baseboard?


 
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tcalo
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Post by tcalo » Sat. Jan. 15, 2022 9:22 am

Rob R. wrote:
Sat. Jan. 15, 2022 8:51 am
What you are doing is exactly what I used to do.
Good to hear Rob

CoalisCoolxWarm wrote:
Sat. Jan. 15, 2022 9:17 am
Are you saying you have a hot air coal stove and then you have some kind of boiler for the hydronics? What heats the hot water baseboard?
I have a freestanding coal stove and an oil fired burner for the baseboard hot water.

 
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CoalisCoolxWarm
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Post by CoalisCoolxWarm » Sat. Jan. 15, 2022 9:50 am

tcalo wrote:
Sat. Jan. 15, 2022 9:22 am
I have a freestanding coal stove and an oil fired burner for the baseboard hot water.
Okay, thanks for the info. Is that oil boiler a cold start?

Before we did a bunch of insulating and made some headway with remodeling to close up holes, we had a handfired hot air bit stove in the basement and let the hydronic system stay idle. We had some idle heat pipes freeze and break in the outer edges of the basement. No antifreeze in the system.

I've also helped a relative replace water heat pipes inside his walls from a house that was empty for a while.

Because of the troubles and effort to fix them, I would recommend you keep those pipes warm and circulating once in a while- if for no other reason other than keeping them protected "for sure"

If you have a cold start boiler, maybe just run the circulator on a timer if you don't want to burn oil?

The concern about cold water circulating and cooling off a room...yep, that's how it works. How much effect it will have depends a lot on the temp of the water, which depends on the temp of your boiler room- is it heated, etc?

Some things to chew on ;)

 
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tcalo
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Post by tcalo » Sat. Jan. 15, 2022 9:58 am

Thanks for the info. The boiler feeds the baseboard heat and indirect hot water storage tank. So it’s always maintaining temp. I usually run the baseboard heat when temps dip below freezing, just to be safe.

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