Dump Zone Advice

I am winding down my first "eventful" season with coal I want to improve things over the summer. I have found that my house (1100 sq ft) is too small to be used as a primary dump zone and am looking for other options. I notice that some of you are using a mondine heater, but not sure if that is an option because my basement is only 460 sq ft with 6 1/2 foot ceilings.

The "modine heater" is actually a brand name of a hot water unit heater that consists of a hot water coil and motorized prop fan.

These come in many sizes from very small to very large. They are not cheap unless you find a great deal on a used one.

For 460 sq ft, a simple zone of hot water finned tube would work. You would not even have to put cover over it, just pipe in bare element. Depending on water temperature you can average 600-700 btuh per foot of fin. I would install 20 to 25 feet of fin in the basement and it will be toasty warm unless you have a lot of air leaks.

Now, if your 1100 sq ft house is "too small" for a dump zone, I would be concerned and look at to why it is too small.

Is your boiler too big?
Are you hand or stoker fired? You may need to fine tune your boiler to regulate the heat better. Many reasons could cause overheating such as too much draft, too much fuel, water temperature regulated too high, etc.

Look a little farther and play with your system while there is still cold weather to fine tune in .

Good luck.

steamup

My furnace is hand feed (New York WC90) 90,000 BTU's. This replaced a 110,000 BTU oil burner. My water temp hasn't overshot very oftern, but it does occasionaly especially when the temps outside reach 40*. So all I am doing is dumping heated water into a zone which is already too hot. Other than that the furnance runs fine during cold weather.

I like your idea about finned tubing. Would a couple of lengths of hot water baseboard to the trick?

A Modine in the basement would take up a lot of space hanging from the ceiling, you are probably better off with baseboard heat to dump in the basement. At least you won't bang your head on baseboards.

My garage is 480 sq. ft. with 10 foot ceilings and I have a small Modine. It's more practical than baseboard and it really sucks heat out of the water quickly. Except for the headroom, I would choose the Modine over the baseboard.

slabadie wrote:steamup

My furnace is hand feed (New York WC90) 90,000 BTU's. This replaced a 110,000 BTU oil burner. My water temp hasn't overshot very oftern, but it does occasionaly especially when the temps outside reach 40*. So all I am doing is dumping heated water into a zone which is already too hot. Other than that the furnance runs fine during cold weather.

I like your idea about finned tubing. Would a couple of lengths of hot water baseboard to the trick?

Finned tubing is what is inside of hot water baseboard. The fin and cover are usually sold separate. The cover is more for looks and a way to hang the fin. In a unfinished space it is ok to hang just fin by "L" brackets or with pipe hangers.

Try cutting down the amount of coal you hand feed in warmer weather.

90,000 BTU for an 1,100 sq ft. house is about double of what you need if you house has standard insulation. I just worked on a new 960 sq ft house for a church group that is to current energy code requirements and it only needs 20,000 btuh on a zero degree day!

I am currently hand feeding wood and have to let my fire go out at 45 to 50 deg. f. and resort to oil for heat and propane for hot water. I am working on a storage tank solution to minimize the oil and propane I use in warm weather.

stoker-man

What size BTU heater do you have?

I have an older HS Tarm 502 with tankless coil. Rated at 110, 000 on wood or oil. I heat about 1500 sq ft and use the house as the dump zone.

Mine is rated at 60K, but with the sq. ft. of steel heating surface, it is probably closer to 100K, which the new ones are rated at...same size boiler.

I have a dump tank that holds about 80 gallons with a domestic coil.When the furnace temp gets to 200 degrees it pumps all the extra hot water for further domestic hot water. I utilize all that extra heat to supply about 80% of my domestic needs for hot water. This will be the last year for this system, it has served me faithfully for 30 years with no problems. Have an axeman aa130 that is in the process of being rebuilt for this coming heating season. Will be selling the dump tank this summer.