I will soon be renovating and adding on to a 1930's bungalow house. It currently has steam heat and large radiators. While I like this type of head and find the radiators charming, I will need every inch of wall space.
Would conversion to a more traditional forced hot water baseboard heat be difficult or prohibitively expensive?
-Jim
Not near enough info. 1930's probably one-pipe ssteam (vent on each rad).
Likely need new boiler, high eff, sized for the remodel. All new piping for the convectors (Is there room to run the piping?).
It's probably doable and if you're renovating, this is the time to do it. During the renovation, I would put a priority on insulating the wall spaces as well.'
Jim
Not if you're up to doing it yourself.
If you're really clawing for space, you might look and see if the fan-driven "convectors" and kickspace heaters that Burnham makes will do better for you than a regular baseboard heater.
--Goedjn
Thanks all. No, I do not intend to do it myself. The boiler is new in
2002, the home inspector did make the comment that it could be done, for what that's worth. There are vents on each radiator. Again, I like the steam, just need to find the least expensive solution that doesn't use the big radiators. Seems they are all in just the wrong space. I like the Burnham solution, I assume this needs water not steam though.-Jim
That depends on what you consider difficult or expensive, of course. Unfortunately, you don't gain much in converting from a typical steam system to hot water. It's unlikely you will be able to convert the boiler from steam to HW, and if it's an older unit, it is proabably very inneficient compared to modern boilers or furnaces anyway. Steam is relatively simple compared to HW; only a single pipe to each radiator, no circulator pump, no expansion tank. i
You may be able to use steam baseboard units, though. They are available but I don't know anything about pricing. Here's one source:
Good luck!
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