Floor heat and trough heat on same boiler

[sparkey]

I know it has been discussed on the forum here before and some people say not to tie the attic trough heat into the floor heat boiler. I have had it both ways and haven't had problems either way. Last year I used a water heater in the attic to heat the trough but it seemed to take alot of extra electricity to keep the water heater going. I am installing a new lochenvar knight boiler for the floor heat and was thinking of using it for the trough heat also. I would use a seperate pump to pump to the attic. Seems to me it takes more heat to warm the floor than the attic so I am thinking the attic trough temperature would be fine? Any thoughts pro or con would be appriaciated.

 

[2Biz]

You might look into using heat tape instead of using your boiler. I looked at my options last winter (Since my trough is heated with the floor heat boiler) and decided to add heat tape. Now I can be more selective when I need to fire up the boiler. Do a search on Raychem to find what I used. 75' of this tape only uses 450w of electric and is self regulating.

I got the idea from several of the guys on here that heat their trough this way. Made perfect sense to me. NG where I live has sky-rocketed....

 

[PaulLovesJamie]

No reason it wouldnt work, but I think its an expensive way to heat the trough. How many btu's does you boiler put out, and how many does it take to heat the trough - the difference is all wasted.
I switched to the electric heat tape many years ago.

 

[car washing systems inc]

I know it has been discussed on the forum here before and some people say not to tie the attic trough heat into the floor heat boiler. I have had it both ways and haven't had problems either way. Last year I used a water heater in the attic to heat the trough but it seemed to take alot of extra electricity to keep the water heater going. I am installing a new lochenvar knight boiler for the floor heat and was thinking of using it for the trough heat also. I would use a seperate pump to pump to the attic. Seems to me it takes more heat to warm the floor than the attic so I am thinking the attic trough temperature would be fine? Any thoughts pro or con would be appriaciated.

I put the trough heat on a contactor and use a t-state to pull the contactor in so the heater only runs when the trough needs heat.

 

[Earl Weiss]

I think if you put the trough heat pump on a seperate T-stat you can have an efficient system.