Hot water radiator

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by arniesea

I agree, an open system is not applicable in many situations. In this case it works because the primary purpose is supplemental overnight heating when the primary source is a "Vermont Castings" wood burning stove in a temperate climate. The radiant heat will come on during times when potable water use is low. (night time and when the home is vacant.) The home is also modest in size so that is also a factor.

And again, I would never put such a system in a trailer. But I thought you might find the information interesting.

Makes perfect sense as a supplemental system when someone might not be present or awake to add wood to the stove!

[bdornbush]

On the Roadtreking podcast, he advertises Alde heating systems made for a class B rv so they should also work in trailers. Retrofitting would be a challenge but it provides radiant heat from the water heater.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[steve dunham]

We have hydronic heat in our home and like it , but we heat the water with a NG boiler and not a domestic water heater.
The question that strikes me is why do you need to heat your trailer for anymore than a few minutes when it's 45 to 60 degs ?
We just returned from ten days in Canada where highs were in the 60's and night time lows were in the low 40's F and never once ran our furnace
Adding hydronic heat to a trailer for such limited use seems like a lot of effort for very little gain.

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by bdornbush

On the Roadtreking podcast, he advertises Alde heating systems made for a class B rv so they should also work in trailers. Retrofitting would be a challenge but it provides radiant heat from the water heater.

That is a very neat system with impressive engineering. It has the space heating loop (glycol) and domestic water loop separated. The only difference in a trailer application is you can't take advantage of engine heat with the built-in heat exchanger.

Imagine an Escape with in-floor radiant heat with glycol for winter camping!

[cpaharley2008]

My house, built in 1948, has in floor radiant heat under floating hardwood floors. There are no nails in the floors as the floor actually expands when warm and floats a little. The cast iron pipes are encased with gravel to transfer the heat from the hot pipes to the gravel to the floor. Thus my basement has 2 ceilings, one to hold the gravel and other a finished ceiling. The pipes are also under the floor, encased in double walled pipes. The basement, with heat in the ceiling for the first floor and heat in the floor is the warmest room in the house when the heat is activated. The house is like a huge heat sink, it takes about 4 hours lead time before the heat is felt, but once going the heat stays until the next cycle repeats the next morning. Levittown, a planned community for the baby boomers in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown,_New_York
built thousands of homes, 30 a day, to meet the post war demand for homes. Most were on slab with the copper pipes in the cement floor. However, after awhile, the lime in the cement reacted with the copper and the pipes started leaking. With cast iron and gravel this chemical reaction should not happen. Thus there are inherent issues with in floor heating.

[arniesea]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

My house, built in 1948, has in floor radiant heat under floating hardwood floors. There are no nails in the floors as the floor actually expands when warm and floats a little. The cast iron pipes are encased with gravel to transfer the heat from the hot pipes to the gravel to the floor. Thus my basement has 2 ceilings, one to hold the gravel and other a finished ceiling. The pipes are also under the floor, encased in double walled pipes.

Wow! Pretty ingenious design for the time!

My home was built in 1957 and has a boiler separate from the domestic water that provides 180F water to radiant baseboard heaters on the main floor. I remodeled my basement in 2012 and the slab was so poorly poured by the prior owner that it sloped 3" from the center line to the back. I hired an outfit to jack hammer out the slab, remove 5" of soil, then added back 3" of gravel, 2" of high density foam, and oxygen barrier PEX tubing rated for radiant slab heat. Tied it all into my existing boiler with a separate zone and mixing valve to drop the slab loop to 110 F. It is all controlled with 2 Nest thermostats connected to my WiFi network so I can control the system from anywhere with my phone.

Oh yes, the floor was finished with an acid stain, then 5 coats of clear coat. End result was Paula's quit room.

[Viajante]

Thanks for the comments. I thought there could be potential for a unit that looks like an oil filled radiator but has couple of quick connect plugs into the hot water loop. So you could have the option of heating with propane rather than electric. Maybe I'll just take the insulation off of the water heater and capture the benefit that way.

[War Eagle]

Originally Posted by arniesea

Wow! Pretty ingenious design for the time! ....

Several years back, I visited a two-story home in northern England that was built centuries ago. The lower level was designed for housing livestock indoors during cold winter weather, and there were baffles that collected the rising warmth coming off the cattle and carried it through ducts in the floor and walls of the second story to passively warm the family's living quarters. They said after awhile you don't notice the smell! So perhaps, you just need a couple large dogs to sleep under your bed (or on it!) during cold nights and let them passively warm your camper. Isn't that kind of how the 70's rock band "Three Dog Night" got their name? Rock on....

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by arniesea

Wow! Pretty ingenious design for the time!

My home was built in 1957 and has a boiler separate from the domestic water that provides 180F water to radiant baseboard heaters on the main floor. I remodeled my basement in 2012 and the slab was so poorly poured by the prior owner that it sloped 3" from the center line to the back. I hired an outfit to jack hammer out the slab, remove 5" of soil, then added back 3" of gravel, 2" of high density foam, and oxygen barrier PEX tubing rated for radiant slab heat. Tied it all into my existing boiler with a separate zone and mixing valve to drop the slab loop to 110 F. It is all controlled with 2 Nest thermostats connected to my WiFi network so I can control the system from anywhere with my phone.

Oh yes, the floor was finished with an acid stain, then 5 coats of clear coat. End result was Paula's quit room.

Wow! Nice work. I bet that room stays very comfortable. I'm working on a performing arts center right now that has 4 pipe changeover radiant heating and cooling via the floor slabs. Making sure you are properly dehumidified and have solid controls and safeties so the cooling loop doesn't run too cold is the biggest challenge. Needs to be cold enough to be effective, but better stay above the dew point or the floors will start to sweat!