Can I Skip the Baseboard Covers?
I went round and round about what kind of heat to use on my weekend house, and, with the help of this board, decided on forced hot air with central a/c. THEN my plumber/heating guy tells me, guess what, looks like the old furnace is fine, the baseboards probably need minimal repairs, and why on…
I went round and round about what kind of heat to use on my weekend house, and, with the help of this board, decided on forced hot air with central a/c. THEN my plumber/heating guy tells me, guess what, looks like the old furnace is fine, the baseboards probably need minimal repairs, and why on earth would you scrap everything?
Well, crap.
So it looks like I’m keeping the baseboard. I hate the look of baseboards. But I really hate the look of the covers and all other covers I see online. Would it be insane to skip the covers? Just have a copper pipe lining the room? I know the covers provide some.. something to radiate the heat and I know they’d be really hot without the covers. But is that so bad? I have hot risers in my apartment and manage to avoid them.
Can I skip them?
Master Plumber —
You said, “3/4″ bare copper pipe emits about 45 BTUs per foot of heat, while the finned sections will emit close to 580 BTUs per foot.”
Did you mean 450 BTUs for the bare pipe or 58 for the finned?
Doesn’t really matter — the concept still works out the same.
Ringo…will you be heating with oil? If you are, just to give you some numbers, I have 2 weekend houses that I heat throughout the Winter. One of them remains pretty much vacant and uses about 200-250 gallons to keep it at a steady 45-50 degrees. the other one gets much more use and uses about 250-300 or so gallons for the Winter.
Also, if this is the first time you are heating a place with oil, look into the Fall pre-buy locking in the price for the Winter. This USUALLY works to your advantage as prices rise through the Winter months. It did not work for many who pre-bought early in 2008 as prices actually crashed throughout 2008 and into 2009. 2009 was a pretty normal season as likely will be 2010.
We can talk over the next few months about this if it’s something new for you.
tybur6, what is it that I’m saying that has you using that “1/10th” fraction? It’s way off.
If you need a fraction, it’s 9/10ths of the total output, or 1/10th less, but not 1/10th of the total.
Anyway, don’t take these numbers to the bank.
Me:
http://www.GatewayPlumbing.com
Very helpful, MP. I feel like maybe I’ll go naked and see what happens. Can always add then down the road.
tyburg, I’d think — but I don’t know — that the heat would catch up faster than the pipes would freeze. I wonder how low you can go on away heat. I keep hearing 50 is the typical away temp.
I was thinking along those same lines tho: sounds like it will take a lot longer to heat up when you drive up on Friday night and walk into a cold house. Luckily, I think I’m putting in a wood/pellet stove that would bump up the heat quickly
Ahh…. I see. The BTU emission is 1/10th but the only difference will be the circulation pump. The boiler won’t fire any more.
But it does mean the system would be “slower” — right? Like a sudden drop in temperature could take a while to be rectified?
I wonder if this makes the “away temperature” a little more dangerous for freezing pipes. i.e., the house warms up in the daytime from the sun, but then cools off very quickly when the sun goes down…. but because the pipes are only emitting 1/10th of the BTUs it would take longer to go back up to temp. So, say, setting the thermostat at 45 degrees could be dangerous.
Just thinking out loud.
Both tybur6 and Ringo said “10x” and “1/10th” respectively, which makes me think I’ve said something misleading.
Look at it this way:
Reduced convection is not likely to result in 1/10th of the heat being emitted from the fin-tubes. More like a 10% reduction overall.
We know this by referencing old charts like this one ( http://www.heatinghelp.com/article/158/Radiators/1537/Radiator-Enclosures ) that show different types, or nearly no enclosure, and their affect on a large steam radiator.
A common bad full-cover design results in a 30% percent reduction, while just a front cover actually adds 10%.
To clarify, the chart shown uses the terms “add” and “deduct” as if you were sizing the radiators from scratch and needed to know output values to meet a given space’s heating demand. (in other words, “add” means less heat, “deduct” means more)
The heat not given off by the radiator will be resorbed by the boiler and will result in a longer burner-off time as the water will remain hotter longer, requiring less fire. The pump running longer cycles without the burner firing could very well result in an efficiency gain as the low wattage draw of the pump costs less than burning fuel. At least in most cases.
Please know, I’m not advocating using the fin-tubes outside of their intended design or application. I’m just putting it out there that there is no reason to think they can not be used in the way the poster suggests if there is some thought given to the calculable difference in output, which may in this case be minimal.
Master Plumber — I hear what you’re saying… but somehow it seems like it’s gotta have an impact on efficiency. If the baseboard is giving off 1/10th of the heat… then the thermostat would “call” for heat 10X as much or 10X longer, right? So something’s gotta give… no?
It’s hot water going back to the boiler… but… the pump is running all the time.
Master Plumber,
Thanks. I have no idea how much heat I’ll need. Probably should figure that out.
When you say it’s got nothing to do with efficiency, does that mean my bill won’t be 10x higher without the finned covers? .
It’s a weekend place and I’m going to be keeping the heat at 50 or whatever most of the time. I hate to do that in a completely inefficient way, but I don’t need the most efficient system in the world either.
The factory covers promote convection. If you don’t need them and you get enough heat output without them, then there is no real concern other than the fact that you’re exposed to their hot surfaces.
3/4″ bare copper pipe emits about 45 BTUs per foot of heat, while the finned sections will emit close to 580 BTUs per foot.
If you know how much heat you need and can compare it to what you’ve got, you’ll know how much you’ll rely on convection.
None of this, mind you, has anything to do with “efficiency”. What is not released by the pipe and fin tube is sent back to the boiler.
Me:
http://www.GatewayPlumbing.com