Caroline, We're planning on heating our house with hydronic (hot water) radiators - plumbed with copper under the (wood) subfloor. Obviously not an option for you - you've already got a hydronically-heated slab. I'm hoping to heat the water with biodiesel or WVO. There are several companies that make hydronic baseboard radiators - and they don't look like the old cast iron steam radiators - they're about 2" thick, and can be ordered in a variety of lengths and heights. One company that makes them is Runtal - http://www.runtalnorthamerica.com/
Most people heat the water with natural gas or propane boilers, but you can also do it with a conventional water heater, either with one dedicated to the hydronic heating, or with an oversized water heater to provide both domestic hot water and hydronic space heating needs. And of course you can pre-heat the water with solar collectors regardless of the type of final heating of the water. Heating with biodiesel or SVO would involve a diesel coolant heater, and I'm in the beginning stages of calculating how large a unit I'd need, but I suspect that a diesel coolant heater would work if it had same BTU's that a hydronic heating engineer or contractor would spec for the boiler or water heater for square footage involved. I'm also looking into using the diesel-fired heat exchanger from a diesel pressure washer for demand-type domestic hot water needs - again with solar collectors for pre-heating the water. And a small and quiet diesel generator (inside a soundproofed and fireproof shed) running on bioD, and eventually WVO, would complete the renewable energy package - maybe with some PV's as well. And of course there's the possibility of capturing some exhaust heat from the generator for some water heating - or to heat the WVO for the generator and/or the coolant heat exchanger so you could run both - after starting the generator on bioD and running it for awhile, then switching over to WVO. Craig You wrote: <snip> > I grew up with old fashioned radiators. These I loved- a warm spot in > each > room, a place to dry your towels, and the ability to turn on and off > each > one. I thought this would be a modern version. I think I should have > redesigned some radiators using the pex pipe. That way they would > have > been accessable and improvable if uses changed- (storage areas, become > > living spaces- some rooms never used but heated anyway because on zone > with > another used room, etc. ) > > Caroline Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
