Let's Talk About Heating Shall We?

[gusherb]

Dry skin and sore throat be gone!

I spent the afternoon installing an Aprilaire fan powered humidifier on the downstairs furnace today. The RH has been known to get as low as 15% in this house during the coldest days, and that can be miserable. Keeping the humidity higher also helps make it feel warmer.
I ran it for a half hour as the furnace was catching up from being turned off for four hours and the RH in the house went up 5% in just that short time, this should hopefully keep up in the worst weather. [this post was last edited: 12/6/2015-02:48]

 

[launderess]

Stopped reading the above linked article

When it became clear it was written by yet another Feel Good Tree Hugger that knew little about the subject matter and hadn't bothered to research further.

No one installs oversized boilers today; by and large the ones in most NYC multi-family/apartment buildings are the same units installed when the place went up. Soon as the basements are finished the boilers are/were hoisted down into place and the rest goes up around them. There are hundreds of boilers in NYC buildings near 100 years old (if not older). Installed back in the 1910's, 1920's, 1930's, etc... (if not before) all mostly burned coal. When the Clean Air Act and other things prevented that they switched to oil. Many now are either dual fuel (natural gas or oil) or just natural gas.

If and or when those boilers are replaced they aren't coming out because it isn't possible. Well you could get them out if you chopped them up into bits and brought them out via basement doors.

While some buildings have heeded then mayor Bloomberg's push (now de Blazio's as well) to install newer more "efficient" condensing boilers, many haven't taken the bait. Why? For the same reasons that woman reporter didn't bother researching; costs of a new system versus payback isn't worth the bother.

In rental non-market rate buildings (close to 70% of NYC rental housing falls under some sort of local rent control) a landlord must apply to the government to recoup any costs of a major capital improvement such as a boiler. Maybe it will be granted, maybe not. Tenants surely will fight against it because their rents go up. So why bother? Leave the old thing down there and maybe install some modifications to make the system more efficient.

So yes the boilers are oversized, but as noted above that was the rule/statute/expectation when those heating systems were installed. Every home, office or apartment building had oversized boilers to account for "ventilation" if not leaving windows wide open even in winter. This grew out of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. Health officials convinced governments and everyone else that fresh air was needed to keep down the risk of disease. So local zoning codes mandated heating systems that could keep a building a 70F even when outdoors was freezing and the windows were wide open.

This is the reason why persons have their windows open all over NYC apartments. The system is sized for conditions that no longer exist such as better fitting and energy saving windows and insulation.

 

[washingpowder]

The article seems to be in good cause, wrong editor though.

My Dad changed his old and rusty gas furnace to a newer, "efficient" one 8-10 years ago.
Chose a smaller unit thinking lower BTU means more savings.
One could run that poor thing on Power Ranger, it would not bring the two-story house higher than 66F. Oh well, good old Poland.

My *new* apartment has single-pipe steam with thermostatic air valves. Would probably work well if 2 out of 3 weren't broken, and if the furnace would run more often than "let's broil them and quickly drop in ice water". And talk about water hammer! Sound of heat coming on would wake the dead.
Am positive most tenants figured since their air valves are broken (safe to assume) they can control the heat with the main valve.

 

[washer111]

Lack of Recouped Costs

The same reason our 30+ year old central A/C has not been retired yet.

Mini-splits might save oodles of power - but try justifying that when installation costs are $8000+ for 4-5 units. It would still take at least 7-10years to get the cost back, and we might not even live here by then!
Nevermind they're so filled with technology who knows if they're serviceable by then...

 

[thomasortega]

Launderess, tha MS for creating this post.

I have little, if not any knowledge about heating systems as Brazil is a super hot country.

But I've seen recently some manufacturers offering a different kind of space heater called "green" because they use much less electricity.

It's some kind of panel that looks like a huge tile (maybe 50 x 50 cm) to be hooked or glued on the wall. The specs say 127V 350w.

Some people get it and they say it's very good. Of course our winter is a joke. It lasts two weeks and the lowest temperature maybe can reach 10°C.

Here I have a super small Delonghi fan heater that was designed to be used in a bathroom or any other very small room, but amazingly it can keep my whole apartment warm. And my apartment is huge.

My questions to anyone are: would a heater like that work in a very cold place? I know it would take ages to heat up but, once the area is already warm, would these green heaters keep the temperature?

Ps.Thinking about heaters made me sweat. Today it's so hot in my city that the asphalt is melting. It's summer here.

 

[cuffs054]

Gush, I've never had a humidifier although I need one. On yours doesn't the heat of the furnace "redry" the air as it goes through the heat exchanger? Can/should a humidifer ever be mounted on supply duct?

 

[gusherb]

That is an old wives tale. The mere act of passing cooler air through a heat exchanger and warming it up does not reduce the moisture content of the air. The warmer air will have a lower relative humidity but the dew point/moisture content of that warm air will remain the same. If you stick your face over a vent blowing 110 degree air with a humidifier running it will seem dry, but that warm air is still holding the moisture added by the humidifier, so as it mixes Into the cooler room it will add to the moisture content in the living space. Make sense?

With the particular type of humidifier I installed (fan powered), installing on the supply plenum is ideal but not required. It is better on the supply plenum as the heat from the furnace will increase evaporation across the water panel. When installing it on a return drop, the humidifier must be fed with hot water. It can be fed with cold when on the supply side, but I'd still prefer to run hot water to it for max effectiveness.

 

[suburbanmd]

Dead Men's Steam School

In New Yorker magazine

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/04/steamed-the-joy-of-steam-heat

 

[warmsecondrinse]

"Green" Heaters ...

As far as I'm aware, in the U.S. "green" is an advertising term and has no actual meaning/weight/value.

Again, AFAIK, a given amount of electricity produces a given amount of heat. E.g. 1500 watts @ 120v produces 5120 BTU's of heat. No electric heating system is inherently more efficient than any other. That said, the design could have a major effect on real world perceived performance.

My mom has a large, glassed in porch that is well-insulated but has no heat. A 1500watt heater will raise the temp by about 10F per hour. A heater blowing hot air makes the room feel warmer more quickly, but if the outside door opens the heat feels 'lost' and the heater kicks on again. An electric, oil-filled radiator producing the same heat (5120 BTUH's) seems to take longer to heat the room, but once the room is warm, a person opening the outside door causes less of a perceived heat loss. Why? The radiator is still hot and producing heat, even though the unit is off.

In the U.S. (and all countries with cold winters, I assume) there are ways of calculating the amount of heat loss a given room has and figuring out how many BTUH's of heat are necessary to keep it comfortable. I believe the 'design temperature' in NYC is 0F/-18C for buildings. This means the heating system needs to be able to keep a room at a given temperature (68F?) when the outside temperature is 0F.

Did this clarify anything?

Jim

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Hooooo-boooyyyy! Here it is: Summer just ended & now the wife wants the FURNACE ON!!!!

I'm not even ready to turn the heat on in the car...

I pointedly told her I should change the furnace filter first, but it seemed after those few runnings, I could not catch it at that first "change of seasons" until right when I quickly got home from work, after buying a couple filters on the way home, right at the time the nearby hardware store was closing & then rushed to the basement, right from there...!

-- Dave

 

[tolivac]

Out my way its still cooling-have the AC on!Won't need the heater for a couple of months yet.