Basement Baseboard Sizing

[News]

I can sure use some help calculating the amount of hot water baseboard heat needed for a finished basement. I tried using some traditional heat loss calculations, but I'm not sure how to account for a 2x4 insulated outside room wall that is next to the basement cinderblock wall.

Between the cinderblock wall ("=" and "|") and the insulated walls ("*") is about 12 inches of space. In this space is the sewer pipe.

============| | ****| | * *| | **** *| | * *| | * *| | * *| | * *| | *******| ============|

The room has two small basement windows and a doorway to upstairs. The ceiling is 7ft. All walls -- interior facing and cinderblock facing -- are insulated with R13. The floor is a slab and the basement is never below 62 in winter (the house in in northern NJ). Above the ceilings are rooms. About 80 linear feet of interior wall is facing the cinderblock wall.

I am planning on using hot water, but I would love to hear some opinions on using electric for this scenario. The room will be used as a playroom for kids and it will be heated mostly after school and weekends.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Best regards,

John

[William Deans]

Greetings,

Since you require heat on a different schedule than the rest of the house you need to add another heat zone / thermostat. Since you are going to have the basement on its own heat zone you don't have to worry about oversizing a little. No exact calculations are necessary. When the room gets too hot the system will cycle off.

Personally this all sounds like overkill to me. Plug in a portable space heater with a digital therastat / timer and you are done. If you need a dedicated outlet for your heater you might be talking about slighly more work but still much less than adding another hydronic heat zone.

Hope this helps, William

PS: If you are OK heating the area all the time with hydronic and not adding a heat zone then the whole story changes and you will need to do exact calculations. Slant-fin offered software do perform these calculations for you at one point free of charge. I would check them out.

[JustCallMe Norman]

If it never drops below 64 F. in the basement , you dont need much heat capacity to maintain 70 f ; i would look at a portable electric heater which is filled with oil --- ive seen em in Menards and Home DePot for about $40 . Maybe you could hook up the light switch so it powers a wall receptacle which in turn enables the portable heater to work anytime the light is turned on for your kids playroom (?) . That is the least expense, and will be economical to operate by having it run only when the room is occupied/light is on.

[geothermal jones]

25-30 btuh/sq.ft will keep the kiddies toasty... 3412 Btuh = 1 Kw 3.412 Btuh = 1 Watt

Electric will be cheaper for the initial install, but cost more for operation.

[News]

Thank you for your help. I am going to switch to electric and save the time and money in installing the hot water baseboad. Electric is much easier.

Take care, John