Steam to Hot Water conversion


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Old 03-16-06, 11:54 AM
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Steam to Hot Water conversion

The house I just bought has a truly bizzare heating system. The first floor is steam, from a gas-fired boiler, piped through these weird radiators that are baseboard-style, seem to be cast-iron, and have an inlet and outlet pipe, but no pressure relief valve. Is it possible these were hot water radiators to begin with?

The second floor is heated with modern baseboards and hot water, but the hot water is generated by a gas-fired 30 gallon hot water heater (the type usually used for domestic hot water).

I would like to convert the entire house to hot-water, put in a single new boiler (and an indirect heater for the domestic side) for both floors, and get rid of the huge iron steam pipes in my basement (I have easy access).

My question is, is it possible (and worth it) to reuse the radiators that are on the 1st floor? Or am I better off getting more modern, higher efficiency units? It seems easier to just rip out everything on the 1st floor (2nd floor is alreay piped for hot water, so no problem), and put in all new piping and radiators, but a lot of people seem to think that the old cast-iron raidators are worth keeping...

Thanks,
Juliean.
 
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Old 03-16-06, 01:32 PM
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#1 - hard to say, key question is will they hold water at 30psi

#2 - higher efficiency units? no such thing - all emitters (rads, baseboards, radiant floors) are 100% efficient but they do have different heating characteristics which is why you shouldn't mix emitter types on the same zone - big difference is essentially the mass - same heat up and cool down way faster or slower than other methods and they all favour particular applications

some pics would be nice - cast iron is much cheaper to keep than it is to buy ;-)
 
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Old 03-16-06, 03:31 PM
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All radiators/baseboards are equally efficient? Then what's the deal with the "high-efficiency" baseboards i see in Home Depot?

I was under the impression that different radiators give off different amounts of heat. Or is this just a question of how much heat a given radiator gives off per amount of wall space taken up, not "efficiency" in the strict physics sense of loss/work ratios?
 
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Old 03-16-06, 04:46 PM
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jgalak

Who is correct in his statement about the emitters & you are correct in your presumption of a wall space/heat ratio. Some will emitt more heat per foot, square inch, etc., but in the physical loss/work sense.
The cast iron baseboard you have can most likely be used for water.
 
 

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