I have a hot water boiler, maybe 8 years old. It has NO ZONES in a 1200 sf house. I have five radiators and then "some pipe" which I assume was supposed to work as a radiator. I'll try to explain that ... in a now "closed in porch" there are four runs of 3" pipe down the cold wall. It does not provide sufficient heat to that room.
OK, I want to improve on this. I love the radiators but they take up space and make remodeling the house difficult. As an example, in the kitchen how can I put cabinets down a wall that has a very large radiator.
So, I want to zone the new system and have in my mind to replace the radiators with baseboard units ... still hot water. In the kitchen my thought is to put them into the "toe kick" of the cabinets. I am building the cabinets myself and will provide the extra space in the toe kick.
I want to get this done in the spring when I can shut the system down ... or, is this possible to do during the heating season? I think I can cut into the existing "feed line" to the radiators, and use PEX to feed a manifold that has the proper switches on it to activate the individual zones, and run PEX from there out to each baseboard. Seems 1" PEX is right to use.
Overall, first question ... am I crazy to try this?
OK, I want to improve on this. I love the radiators but they take up space and make remodeling the house difficult. As an example, in the kitchen how can I put cabinets down a wall that has a very large radiator.
So, I want to zone the new system and have in my mind to replace the radiators with baseboard units ... still hot water. In the kitchen my thought is to put them into the "toe kick" of the cabinets. I am building the cabinets myself and will provide the extra space in the toe kick.
I want to get this done in the spring when I can shut the system down ... or, is this possible to do during the heating season? I think I can cut into the existing "feed line" to the radiators, and use PEX to feed a manifold that has the proper switches on it to activate the individual zones, and run PEX from there out to each baseboard. Seems 1" PEX is right to use.
Overall, first question ... am I crazy to try this?