Hydronic heating

Hi Mrs W
We have the hydronic heated tail rails and I can tell you they do heat up the whole room.

Mrs B

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Hi Mrs W
We have the hydronic heated tail rails and I can tell you they do heat up the whole room.

Mrs B [/quote]


I have sooo many lines I can add to this

Hi steveo, I'm also considering towel rails vs a panel for the bathroom. You have some experience?

Hi
new to this forum...we have hydronic heating panels in our house...
we have moved into a house and have just changed boilers, as the one installed was not working so we bought ours from our last house that was pulled down...
it is a SIME format external 34E
does anyone know the heat output setting it should put out or is there a formula for the setting.
it has an adjustable kw setting from 11-34 kw or kpa .09 to .71
this is done with some small gas meter he has...
he said a safe bet is go in between, but if we can go on the lower setting it saves gas.
we have a small terrace house with 6 panels .
Our plumber does not normally do Hydronic boiler installs but we have used him for many mnay years.Said its a simple adjustment if I care to find out.
thanks for any help
michael

Hi Mrs B,

Have been reading this thread - would be interested to know how many panels you got in order to save so many $$$$ with different quotes. How many squares are you heating? We were quoted $14 - $15K for 8-10 panels. Those floor registers I was told are quite pricey as well.

Hi Supasquirrel

From what the guys explained to me, you can’t save $'s by getting less panels as your heating system will become ineffective. The two quotes were for exactly the same amount of panels...the cheaper one included the under floor panels. The price difference is because one company wanted our business more than the other...that what I think We just shopped around until I found what I considered a 'fair and reasonable' price. I can’t recommend this company enough...the after service has been terrific. We had a leak a few weeks ago, although they said it wasn’t the hydronics, they sent 2 guys out to do pressure testing for an hour...no arguments, just really good service (it turned out to be the upstairs toilet wasn’t installed properly).

Our house is about 40sq's living I think...never really know how to work it out
Double glazing throughout... apparently is important for the system to operate effectively. As for the amount of panels we have... (quickly do this in my head)
Wall...9
Floor...2
Towel rails...3

I am no expert on hydronic heating but I hope my experience has helped others to make a decision one way or another.

Mrs B

just a general call, does anyone here have hydronic heating+2x storey house? did you just install it on the lower floor or both?

trying to figure out if i could get away with just heating the lower floor+ICF walls would be enough for a 'comfortable temperature' upstairs.

Had this situation in the UK and installed radiators in both floors. Especially needed in the bathroom.

Firefox, we have hydronic radiators on lower floor only. Upstairs is all in the roof line with dormer windows. We used 75mm polystyrene foam (rendered) for the dormer walls & gable ends, as well as foilboard insulation totally cocooning the rooms in the roof. Under the roof is a good quality roof blanket as well......effective?? don't know we're not in yet!! Hope it will be. SA climate would IMO be OK with the same - we're in Melb. which is colder. In the UK you'd need heating upstairs, heaps colder climate.

can anyone give me some brands or companies for hydronic heating? so far ive found a company called 'rotex' and i am still looking for a supplier in adelaide..

after 2hrs of searching i have found something rather useful:

solar hot water+solar hydronic heating!

http://www.solarhydronics.com.au/hydron ... ystems.htm


not too sure if it works with floor heating, something to do with the higher temperatures... going to make some calls..

other company's:
http://www.solarlord.com.au/index.php?o ... &Itemid=29
http://www.comfortheat.com.au/products.htm

If you want hydronic heating the radiatior panels are the way to go. In slab heating response time is way too long and these are best left on over longer periods because of that - probably not needed for SA climate. The website comfort heat is for electric slab heating, expensive to run.

ill agree, it doesnt get that cold here in adel, how much area can radiator panels heat up to? perhaps it would be viable to use a pyrox gas heater for a large area

Mrs B- just wondering, when you say 2 floor panels do you mean underfloor heating? Where do you have this and do you leave it on all the time over the colder months? Is it expensive to run??

It is nice to have the opinion of someone who is actually using it!

Hi Mrs W
No it is not underfloor heating as you cannot have floorboards (not effective and voids the floor warranty) if using that system. What we have is our hydronic system coming up through vents from the floor because there was no wall space to put the panels. A much more expensive option but it was our best choice for that particular room.

Hope this makes sense

Mrs B

If you’re investing in a concrete foundation and slab, it makes sense to have it work for you in another way, as thermal mass. A thin layer of insulation under a concrete slab will serve to keep the ground from acting as a heat sink. At the same time, the ground serves to help regulate the slab temperature because any extreme will be tempered by the earth’s relatively constant temperature.

For solar heating, you will want a 4-6 inch thick slab. It will take a long time to change the temperature of that much thermal mass and its earth connection. It will tend to be cool in summer and vertically-mounted solar collectors will keep it warm in winter.

Thought i might BUMP this topic as it is such a good read that has been lost in the forum

+1 for Supreme Heating!

We have thermostatic heads in each of the bedrooms, so can control the temperature to each room (can only LOWER the temperature or turn it off completely)

Plus isolation between upstairs and downstairs, so can set the temperature downstairs to 21 degrees and upstairs to 18 degrees or turn off. (No point in heating upstairs if no one is there)

You can also add covers to the panels. It does reduce the efficiency slightly, but it is not as hot to touch. But I mainly did it for aesthetic reasons.

http://rlay1.blogspot.com/2010/05/hydronic-heating.html

I just read through this thread and would be really interested to know if you found it much of a saving on your electricity bills? Soundsl ike a great system!

Hi Lana,

Most (or all) hydronic boilers use gas to heat up the water. The only electricity usage is to run the pump to recirculate the water throughout the house. So therefore, very minimal electricity usage.

As for gas usage, it depends on how long you have it on for. But they are far more efficient than an instantaneous hot water system. This is due to the fact that they are a closed system so the water circulates the house, then back to the boiler to get re-heated again. Most likely the water will still be warm/hot so it doesn't need to re-heat from cold.