Windsor Terrace Reno

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January 4, 2008

Baby, Its cold outside.

In honor of this frigid day, an homage to the little mechanical room that keeps the house warm. Not very exciting to look at but oh so important and hardworking.

To the left we have a AO Smith 75 Gallon Hotwater Heater. Right of that is a Weil-McLain CG6 175,000 BTU boiler And somewhat hidden but all the way at the right is the humongo (much larger than we anticipated) "package" for the air conditioning. Hot water and heat seem to working nicely, air conditioning not yet tested.

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Comments

looks great. When you decided on these what were the deciding factors ? I'm most interested in the central air as that seems fairly pricey to retro fit in a brownstone from what I've read.

Posted by: 10thStreetReno at January 4, 2008 6:03 PM

A few major factors went into the decision into getting central air and heat.
1. Our entire house needed new plumbing, heating, electrical and mechanicals anyway so we knew our walls were going to have to be opened and this would be a good time to put in the ducts in the wall for central air.
2. Since all of the pipes and radiators needed to be replaced, we went whole hog and got the central heat too.
3. Since one of the complaints of forced hot air is dryness, we went with a hydronic system. Basically its like having radiator like heat that gets blown through the house via the ducts.

Yes, its pretty expensive but some of the money we went on the central system would have been spent anyway on replacing the radiators and heating plumbing. And the cost of repairing all the walls was already being spent on repairing the walls from the water damage/electrical/plumbing reno.

When we started the reno, we had a budget and it fit within it so our decision was made.

Aside from the obvious benefits of having cool and hot air when you want it, another benefit was having the area formerly taken up by radiators free. That may not seem like a lot but with small rooms, it really does make quite a difference.

If your house doesn't require as extensive of a renovation as ours, I don't know if I would recommend it b/c they really do have to rip the house apart to squeeze all the ducting in. They also weren't especially quick about it which wasn't an issue for us since we had plenty of other work to keep us busy while they did what they had to do.

I can't tell you if its the right decision or not since we haven't had to use the a/c and are just barely starting to use the heat. I hope we made the right decision but time will tell.

Posted by: Mrs. Limestone at January 4, 2008 7:25 PM

I'm confused by your terminology. Hydronic heating is hot water/steam circuclating in radiators/radiant floor loops.

But you say "blown...via ducts" which sounds like forced air? If you have a hot water coil with a fan blowing air over it, that is no different than "forced air".

Posted by: cmu at January 5, 2008 12:54 AM

Im certainly not an expert but my understanding is that hydronic refers to how the heat is created rather than the delivery system. In our case, the heat is created in the same way a radiator system would warm a home (moist air) but rather than delivering the heat via the radiators in each room, its created centrally and then delivered via the ducts.

Posted by: Mrs. Limestone at January 6, 2008 7:18 PM

Mrs. Limestone has what is called a hydro-air system. It is a hydronically-heated forced air design.

And if I was her, I'd ask the installer to repipe the boiler according to manufacturer's instructions here:
http://www.weil-mclain.com/downloads/literature/cga/cgaboilermanual.pdf
Page 16 deals with placement of the circulator (red thing on top/left of the boiler) in relation to the air separator and expansion tank (the big grey thing directly over the boiler).

The document clearly states that the two parts need to switch places.

Doing so will help avoid problems with entrained air, pressure relief valve discharges and increase the life of the expansion tank and pump.

I have a feeling I'm going to get a nasty phone call tonight.

Posted by: Master Plvmber at January 7, 2008 3:44 PM

Thanks Master Plumber. I have no clue what entrained air is but Ill bring it to his attention.

Im not sure why you think you'll get a nasty phone call but I assure you won't be getting one from me or the installer.

Posted by: Mrs. Limestone at January 7, 2008 4:05 PM