17: Radiant Heating Systems in VS .NET

Making QR Code ISO/IEC18004 in VS .NET 17: Radiant Heating Systems

If you re a do-it-yourselfer, installing an electric system is much easier than installing a hydronic one Not a lot can go wrong with an electric system, and if something does go wrong, it s pretty easy to fix With a hydronic system, a lot more can go wrong, and it s often a bear to repair Also, with a hydronic system, if you put the floor covering in place and something goes wrong, you ve got a potential disaster on your hand when the liquid seeps out This can be a real mess Not so with an electric system If you re remodeling and need a heater in a basement or an add-on room, using electric radiant heat in the floor can be very inexpensive compared to other options When you re adding space to your home s interior that needs to be heated, you generally can t just tap into the existing whole-house HVAC system because it was designed with a specific capacity in mind, namely the size of your existing home Tapping in could render the whole-house system incapable of doing the job adequately Your HVAC system may not be able to keep up on the coldest winter days, despite being perpetually on You can install a radiant floor system without tapping into your existing HVAC and have a more comfortable, efficient room to boot

Masonry heaters are designed for very hot fires in their combustion chambers (typically over 1,300 F) The heat passes through a series of baffled chambers called heat exchangers, which draw the heat from the air and transfer it into a dense, solid material The heat is then radiated slowly and passively into the living space of your home The heat is just as slowly absorbed into the walls, floors, ceiling, furniture, and, eventually, into the people in the room The ambience is very comfortable, and nearly everybody who has ever experienced a masonry heater s effects swears by them Masonry heaters have a tremendous amount of mass, which in practical terms translates into very consistent, even performance Even when doors are momentarily opened to the outdoors on a cold day, the home does not feel much different because it s not so much the air that s warm, but the entire home Although the initial costs of masonry heaters are high expect a minimum of around $8,000, not including what it takes to beef up your foundation or chimney work they re very efficient Efficiencies of masonry heaters can be up to 90 percent, which is truly impressive The following sections explain what you need to know about masonry heaters

In some ways, masonry heaters are like wood stoves in that they burn wood and radiate heat But there are important differences: Masonry heaters need to have their combustion cycle more carefully controlled than wood stoves do because the fire is so much hotter Opening and closing doors is more critical Except during fueling, the doors remain closed with most units Some allow for the door to be open, but then the fire is more like a conventional fireplace and the efficiency is diminished The amount of heat a masonry heater generates is controlled by the amount of wood burned (not the amount of oxygen added to the burn chamber, as with conventional stoves) The burn temperature needs to be highly controlled, and varying the oxygen varies the temperature You can use most any wood to good benefit and less of it than you d use in conventional stoves because masonry heaters extract Btu extremely efficiently from the wood (The fuel used in masonry heaters is thinner in diameter because more air circulation is needed between the pieces of wood) A masonry heater takes a long time to heat up to its steady state operating temperature With conventional stoves, the heating effects take hold in just 15 minutes But with a masonry heater, you need to plan ahead If you come home from a few days away, your home won t heat up for hours On the other hand, you can go to bed at night when your masonry heater is working full bore, and when you wake up in the morning your home will be nearly the same temperature Masonry heaters can be used in many locales where other types of stoves are banned due to air pollution Because they burn wood so thoroughly, the pollution impact is minimal Despite all the ways masonry stoves differ from conventional stoves, they do share a few of the more irksome characteristics: You need a source of firewood (although some masonry heaters are coming onto the market now that use other fuel sources) Burning wood is labor intensive, regardless of how efficiently you do it They tend to be dirty to operate Around the unit you may notice a coating of soot (true with all wood stoves!)