heating pipe fins?

[dkpbxman]

I have hydronic hot water heating throughout the house. In some area's in various rooms, the pipes carrying the water do not have those small fins on them. Is there some kind of retro-fit kit where I can add more fins?

Thanks,

[LazyPup]

Adding more fins would not be a good idea.

When designing the layout of the piping system they begin by determining the BTU requirement for each room. They then design the piping in a loop or zone that will pass through two or more rooms.

The design manual lists the BTU radiation rate for finned lines. cast baseboard radiators, and the bare pipe and it gives a BTU/FT radiation value.

Just for the sake of illustration let us say the room requires 1000BTU/hr.

Now let us say the pipe has a radiation value of 20BTU/ft and the room is 20 feet long. This means the bare pipe would radiate 20bTU/ft x 20ft = 400BTU/hr.

We then deduct the 400BTU/hr for the pipe from the 1000BTU/hr required by the room and we get 1000 - 400 = 600BTU/hr.

If we were then using finned baseboard that radiates 50BTU/hr per foot we would need 600BTU/ 50BTU = 12 linear feet of finned baseboard plus the bare pipe to provide the necessary 1000BTU/HR.

If you were to arbitrarily add fins it would result in radiating too much heat in the first room on the loop, which in turn would cool the water in the line to quickly so the next room on the loop would be starved for energy.

[dkpbxman]

"If you were to arbitrarily add fins it would result in radiating too much heat in the first room on the loop, which in turn would cool the water in the line to quickly so the next room on the loop would be starved for energy."


Thanks, makes sense.