Need Help With Cast Iron Rads

Jackrich · Post by **Jackrich** » Sat. Dec. 20, 2014 1:58 am

I am in need of some advice on what kind of distribution or manifolds to use on cast iron rads for 2nd and 3rd floor in my home. I already have 3/4 oxygen barrier home runs of pex ran. I have an ODWB ( Heatmor) and slab on grade radiant in floor heat on the first floor. Not sure what temp to run floor heat at and would the temp swing be too big for the rads with existing heat? radiant slab heat? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

blrman07 · Post by **blrman07** » Sat. Dec. 20, 2014 6:32 am

Ok first welcome to the forum. Before anyone can start to mumble about helping you out we will need lots more information.

You said you have a three story home. Sq footage per floor?
How do you currently heat said floor space?
What is the BTU rating on the OWB?
How much wood are you currently burning?
Is the house currently comfortable?

That will get things started. Lots more will chime in later when the sun comes up so hang around and fasten your seat belt.

Oh and we love photographs. Posting photo's will save a lot of typing.....

waldo lemieux · Post by **waldo lemieux** » Sat. Dec. 20, 2014 8:39 am

jack,

welcome. First let me say that your appliance of choice may put some off , but Id bet that youll find some helpful info hereabouts.

I start. Your decision to make home runs for your radiators will make your job easier, and can with the right valve be very tunable , without the need for a bypass on each unit.Depending on the number of rads and zones you need to make sure your primary manifold is large enough. A rough sketch of the floorplan( bar napkin ok) would be a help.

to blrman's list I would add:

# and length of loops
heat loss calcs?
general location
left or right handed
age of bldg
and more to come.

dont forget , the amount and timeliness of information is the key to a coherent response.

waldo

windyhill4.2 · Post by **windyhill4.2** » Sat. Dec. 20, 2014 9:16 am

Jackrich, Welcome to the forum. You won't want to run the same temp water thru the floor as you will the radiators.The floor will require moderate temps, around 100* +/- ,the radiators will not feel warm with less than 125* + going thru them & preferably around 160* . A mixing valve will keep the floor loop at a set temp that is comfortable for you and your flooring materials. I am not an expert nor is any thing I have posted ,i have posted my opinion based on personal experiences. I do not envy you with the OWB,we did that for 8 loonngg yrs.

McGiever · Post by **McGiever** » Sat. Dec. 20, 2014 8:04 pm

What kind of distribution or manifolds to use

(for adding another circuit that makes it more than one temperature on a single temperature system)

http://www.houseneeds.com/learning-center/hydroni ... -example-1

Jackrich · Post by **Jackrich** » Sun. Dec. 21, 2014 2:04 pm

First of I would like to thank those of you who responded to my post. Finally somebody who cares enough!! As I would do the same for somebody else. I called every (7) HVAC companies out of the yellow pages and none of them knew anything about hydronic heat only answer was gonna go back to the office and we will get back to you. Never heard from the again. The home we purchased I guess you could say its unique. It was built in 1998 and was only 80 percent complete, and had changed owners a couple times from the original builder and is currently still not finished. The home construction consist of 5 inch poured concrete walls ( exterior and interior) with foam insulation. (4 inch) It had existing 5/8 he pex slab on grade radiant heat for the first floor and nothing on the 2nd and 3rd floors. To best describe the layout is right as you come in the front door there is a large 35 by 35 open room with a fifty foot ceiling. The heat on the first floor so Far has been heating the whole area. The 2nd floors consist of two bedrooms being 16 by 16 with 14 foot ceilings and bathroom in the middle that's 10 by 20. With 10 ft ceiling.These are the areas that I considered installing the old rads in. The existing pex on the 1st floor covering about 2500 sq feet had about a dozen leaks from freeze damage over the 10 years it sat unoccupied. I believe I am almost finished finding and fixing the leaks in the concrete. Used a FLUKE(VT04) Visual IR Thermometer. Worked very well so far I think. Will be pressure testing today. All of the questions from the responses I am going to figure out today. What is a good app or program I can use to calculate the heat load needed? Once again I Greatly appreciate your time and assistance and sorry to be so long just needed to explain how I got in this situation. By the way I forgot to mention my ODWB has grates in which I burn coal too. Heatmor model DSS. Didn't choose it, inherited with purchase of the CASTLE.[

windyhill4.2 · Post by **windyhill4.2** » Sun. Dec. 21, 2014 3:19 pm

Is gravity built into the floor ?I notice that the floor is in the same position as normal houses have their left side wall. That would definitely take some getting used to.

My wife asked me what part of the world you live in ,I looked at your profile & it doesn't say if you are in Jamaica or Manitoba. Having lived in Jamaica I know you do not need an OWB there so we can rule Jamaica out as a location for you. In the history of this forum nobody has ever been stolen by entering their town & state into their profile,maybe you could be the first.

Jackrich · Post by **Jackrich** » Sun. Dec. 21, 2014 4:30 pm

It was my first time posting and forgot to edit to make sure pics were uploaded correctly. Sorry first time on the web. I will practice to get better at it.

windyhill4.2 · Post by **windyhill4.2** » Sun. Dec. 21, 2014 4:45 pm

Side ways pics are fairly common on here,thanks for the update on your profile,Zanesville,Ohio , a very interesting history story behind that town.

Jackrich · Post by **Jackrich** » Sun. Dec. 21, 2014 5:01 pm

What history would that be?

windyhill4.2 · Post by **windyhill4.2** » Sun. Dec. 21, 2014 5:27 pm

My wife likes to study frontier history & the Zanes in Ohio is 1 of her favorite stories. Zanesville was founded in 1800 by Ebenezer Zane & had some very interesting historical events occur there. Zane Gray is a descendent who found a diary written by 1 of his ancestors. Lots of interesting stuff & I am a slow typer,best to goggle for more info.Learn about a fast running girl..Betty Zane,a sister to Ebenezer & Issac ,she saved their lives by running gun powder thru flying bullets from the British, Issac married an Indian girl. Just some teasers for you.

Jackrich · Post by **Jackrich** » Sun. Dec. 21, 2014 6:50 pm

Yes I am aware of Mr. Gray, the founder of our wonderful city.

windyhill4.2 · Post by **windyhill4.2** » Sun. Dec. 21, 2014 7:33 pm

Zane Grey was a descendent of the founder his maternal great grand father , Ebenezer Zane- an American Revolutionary war patriot.

Wallyp · Post by **Wallyp** » Mon. Dec. 22, 2014 7:32 am

We live at London Ontario Canada, have sold Heatmors since 1995, and have burned anthracite and been a dealer for Blaschak for the past 3 years , and now also a dealer for Keystoker. We have learned how burning anthracite in a Heatmor can be a great way of heating, but not everyone has the same luck . We have shaker grates and last year used a fire brick lined steel box that sat over the grates and held about 300 pounds of nut size anthracite, but this year have been getting along just as well without the box, keeping the anthracite bed very deep- almost to the bottom of the firebox door opening . The key is to shake the coal bed at least 2 x per day until hot coals appear in the ash tube below the grates- we even shake in the "dump" mode but then the trick is to stop shaking before a hard piece of anthracite jams the grates . Our other off the cuff thing that works for us is- set the water temp to cycle between 150 and 165, but for constant natural draft we jam a screw driver between the ash tube cover plate and the tube such that there is a gap of about 1/8 inch- that allows natural, under the fire draft, continuously so that the combustion air fan seldom comes on . We throw in one full 40 pound bag, bag and all, on average, in the morning and at night to heat our 4,000 sq ft home plus 1,000 sq ft shop.

McGiever · Post by **McGiever** » Mon. Dec. 22, 2014 8:47 am

Wallyp wrote:We live at London Ontario Canada, have sold Heatmors since 1995, and have burned anthracite and been a dealer for Blaschak for the past 3 years , and now also a dealer for Keystoker. We have learned how burning anthracite in a Heatmor can be a great way of heating, but not everyone has the same luck . We have shaker grates and last year used a fire brick lined steel box that sat over the grates and held about 300 pounds of nut size anthracite, but this year have been getting along just as well without the box, keeping the anthracite bed very deep- almost to the bottom of the firebox door opening . The key is to shake the coal bed at least 2 x per day until hot coals appear in the ash tube below the grates- we even shake in the "dump" mode but then the trick is to stop shaking before a hard piece of anthracite jams the grates . Our other off the cuff thing that works for us is- set the water temp to cycle between 150 and 165, but for constant natural draft we jam a screw driver between the ash tube cover plate and the tube such that there is a gap of about 1/8 inch- that allows natural, under the fire draft, continuously so that the combustion air fan seldom comes on . We throw in one full 40 pound bag, bag and all, on average, in the morning and at night to heat our 4,000 sq ft home plus 1,000 sq ft shop.

Always use only Nut size?

Need Help With Cast Iron Rads

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