Brazen Exchange!
A very informed potential client just mentioned a special gizmo that would reduce the heat of the water from a radiator system to run radiant floor heat from a typical boiler. I’ve done a tiny bit of research just now and found something called a “brazed heat exchanger” which seems to do just that. Basically,…
A very informed potential client just mentioned a special gizmo that would reduce the heat of the water from a radiator system to run radiant floor heat from a typical boiler. I’ve done a tiny bit of research just now and found something called a “brazed heat exchanger” which seems to do just that.
Basically, it’s a thick plate with two (or more) holes in it. The boiler pipe runs through one hole, in contact with the plate, and the radiant floor heat pipe runs through the other. The plate absorbs heat from the water in the boiler pipe and distributes it to the water in the radiant pipe.
Sounds like it should work, right? Has anyone tried something like this? I’d be curious to hear how they do.
Thanks Master- and Brooklyn- Plumbers. I’m glad to see the solution is actually simpler than I thought.
For radiant heating, you can create a sub-zone off of your boiler with a mixing station to lower the water temperature for your radiant. Not too difficult to do if you know what you’re doing. Brazed plate heat exchangers are mainly used where you want to transfer heat between two different liquids that you don’t want to touch like in a snow melting system that has glycol running through it.
You can use the heat exchanger for that purpose, certainly, but you probably don’t need it. We run small hydronic heating loops off of steam (I assume you’ve got a steam boiler) boilers all the time using the existing tappings.
You should not use a water heater for this purpose. It’s a germ breeder and a Code violation.
Ahhh, Master Plumber, just the man I was looking for!
Is it possible to use one to step down water temp to run a standard hydronic heat system in a room in a house that heats the rest of the house with radiators? For instance, if we were renovating a basement or adding an extension and we didn’t want or couldn’t use radiators, could we use the same boiler for the hydronic heat instead of adding another low-temp water heater for the new system? Likewise, would we be able to do something similar with the domestic water heater to heat the hydronic heat water?
Does that make sense?
I use brazed-plate heat exchangers all the time. What do you want to know?