I just joined this forum after following this thread for a short time. A couple of days back I participated in another forum (Green Talk) about hydronic and I contacted through the forum and personally, NRT.Rob. So, Hi Rob.

I am familiar with hydronic the old fashion way that I can see you all are debating enthusiastically and with a lot of insights coming from installations experience it looks like. I tip my hat to your dedication.

I was a hydronic user for 28 years in the New York area (no longer there). After moving into the house for the first time I learned that I inherited from the prior owner a full fledge hydronic system with radiators in the old part and a radiant floor in a new extension. Fully hydronic from the get go without any warning. If the heating worked OK so far I’ll continue doing that, I thought, no problem.

I was told that hydronic was better. I have to confess that we had a rough first winter, not about of lack of heating but too much and too hot on those “Indian Summers” days, but in the middle of that and studying the problem I figured it very well and after that for an additional 27 year it was a very, very good system, very comfortable. After walking ½ mile on 2 feet of fresh snow, walking into a warm house was extremely cozy.

But now I am in a new hydronic protocol. Better, it is a new HVAC protocol. It is called bio-climatizing or bio-climatization and it is the latest technology, fully developed and tamed in Europe in the last 20 years. And it is available in the US. A couple of years back there were over 20 million ft2 installed already. So it is nothing really “new” there.

This system is practically unknown in North America. I am warning you, it may shake you to your foundations. It is radiant heating AND cooling in the same installation and by capillary tubes. It is installed primarily in the ceiling and only as a complement or special uses in the floor and/or the walls. It uses very little water (1 and 1/3 oz per ft2 or less) and other advantages I don’t want to get into in this forum. If you want more info go to www.bekausa.com . There are over 40 hrs of reading information there.

If you feel to ask anything pertinent to this thread and this new technology I’ll try to address that at once.

All the valuable concepts and approaches exposed here so far are still valid.

Dear Whiteallan,
I just visited the site you told. there is lot of reading stuff. hence could not read much only tried to rea briefly to get an idea.
On the site they discribed how the human body works. the human body generates more heat then required and then releases that heat to control the temperature of the body . the mode of energy release are radiation, convection and evapouration.
It was a nice presentation and then it corelated its product to this working saying that similarly the product releases heat in the form of 60 % radiation and 40% convection.
First of all I would like to say that the radiation heating or cooling system of room works on exactly the oposite way as the body works. The differences are:-
1)The body has to keep its temperature constant where as the radiant system has to keep the the temperature of the room constant the systems temperature can fluctuate to maintain the temperature of the room.
2)the body generates heat to keep its temperature constant.
3) The room does not generate any heat . it is the system that generates heat if the room temperature has to be increased and takes away heat from the room if it has to be cooled.
However the difference is not much but the point I want to make is that all the radiant heating products work on the same principle and the product discribed by you is not unique. the only difference is that the tubes are thinner resulting in lesser amount of water.
al the radiant products be it hydronic or electric work on same principle of energy transfer. which is around 60% radiation and 40% convection . but it varies by location of system. if it is installed on roof then convection currents would not occur and hence more of radiation will be there. if it is installed in floor then both radiation and convection will be there ( because we are not living in vacume). when air will come in contact with loor at higher temperature it will get heated and rise and coller air will come down and convection currents will start. hence radiation and convection both will be there .
hence the phenomenon discribed by your company is applicable on all radiant heating products.
The only thing is that your company has described the phenomenon in a very good manner.
The bodys work i s

Dear Tefkot_Gujan

It was nice that you visited www.bekausa.com. There are like 40 hours reading there. The good news is that once you read it carefully it stays with you forever.

I would like to comment:

1) The human body, as all “homeotherms” (warm blooded animals), is constantly overheating metabolically. The bodies have to constantly loose heat. Otherwise you start accumulating temperature, get a fever and if you reach 106°F you go into a coma and die. There is no other option. Life is compatible within a very specific temperature range. The higher level is accepted at about 106°F. The lower level may vary. Even in winter your body must “cool”. The BEKA USA system cools you less in winter and more in summer. But you must cool all the time. Your biology, without your conscious participation will do that and send you “messages”. If you have to do something else like if you feel cold, it means that you are losing heat too fast, more than you metabolism can catch up with, and you will add some clothing (insulation) from a single long sleeved shirt to a heavy coat or else, you’ll get sick and go to a better pastures.

The BEKA USA system use physics to an art. Heat, in the natural world, moves always from hot to cold, never the other way around. Therefore we control “the room’s” mean radiant temperature to the right level. Colder or hotter but always has to be below the skin temperature (90°F), otherwise, being the skin at 90°F heat will not jump (as infrared energy and at the speed of light) from your skin to the room, you biology will make you to start to sweat, and with that water evaporation it will take heat away from your body, up to a limit of course, being that how hydrated you are.

I don’t want to make it too long. Suffice to say that a comfortable hydronic system has to aim to allow the human body to be comfortable, loosing heat faster or slower and the room has to move to cooler or hotter to permit physics to work. The BEKA USA system will get the ceiling at 70-75°F in summer in the cooling season and about 85 in the winter, the heating season, but always below skin temperature. As every individual is different and comfort is subjective and means something different to different people, you can have different zones, and as many zones as you want in each installation, to a different temperature as per each zone dweller’s desire by a thermostat set up in each zone. That will give you a different mean radiant temperature in each zone/room if so desired at the same time and in the same overall installation.

2) The healthy body always overheats and has to lose heat or else.

3) Correct in my opinion. The room’s mean radiant temperature changes as needed. All the radiant products or installations by any technique should reach this target if it is oriented to human comfort, or different if oriented to other targets, like a freezer for penguins in the Germany’s Berlin Zoo (below freezing) or a wine cellar (56-58°F year round) in Spain or Italy.

You comment that all “the radiant heating products work on the same principle and the product described by you is not unique”. Yes, radiant heating is always for heating and limited to one direction… heating.

I invite you to start thinking a little different now on. Radiation is FROM YOUR BODY in the BEKA USA system. That gives human comfort if we are talking an installation for human comfort. Radiant is for cooling and for heating the rooms/zones but never stopping the radiation from YOUR body and the BEKA USA system provides both in the same installation. Not only that you can have different temperature at the same time in different zones but with a 4 pipe installation you can have cooling and heating AT THE SAME TIME in different parts of the building (pharmaceutical commercial installations?).

Again, if you are not targeting human comfort, then the system can be easily set up for other temperature goals.

There is such a thing as “natural convection”. It is always there if you have surfaces with different temperatures. In a room you have a “mean-radiant-temperature” meaning it is an average. But small temperatures differences will produce small convections that your body will not sense. If you walk in a room and your are at skin temperature (90°F or more if you have been exerting yourself) and the rooms mean temperature is below that you are now “the load” and a turbulent air plume will be produced at once from your body to the cooler ceiling. That will still be “natural convection”, you won’t feel it but it will be a very healthy natural convection. You also will start infrared radiating to the room’s cooler surfaces. Our system works about 60% by radiation and 40% by convection. In other words we match almost perfectly human biology that is made to cool 50% by radiation and 30% by convection, being the left over to cool by excretions.

I think the BEKA USA system is unique.

Best regards

Dear Whiteallan,
Thank you for explaining in detail about your system. It helps a lot to understand the stuuf and compare it with other things you know if it is explained properly.
What you have explained is that human skin temperature is 90 deg and hence the temperature of the surronding environment near the skin should be slightly less than this temperature for the body to feel comfortable. If the surrounding temperature is slightly higher then the human body will start swetting to maintain its temperature by evapouration. and if the temperature is to cold then the body will start loosing heat fast and will feel shivers ( hence uncomfort). hence for comfort levels the rooms temperature should be between a specified comfort range all the time. irrespective of the outside temperature. Right?
And here your system comes into picture . the work of your system is to keep the room temperature between the disirable temperature range. and this is what it does. the heating mode is radiation from the surface under which the system is installed and some natural convection due to air comming in contact with warmer surface.
But that is precisely my point.
All radiation systems work on this principle only. They all heat by radiation and natural convection and keep the room temperature slightly less than 90degF so that person feels comfortable.
in your system you say that heating and cooling can be done at the same time. this is unique. But do we require heating and cooling at the same time? depending upon the outside temperature we will either need heating if outside is cold or we will need cooling. I dont think we come across situations where we are heating our rooms and within an hour we are in need to cool the house. That can happen if we hare heating too much and then will need to cool to keep the temperature down. That means wasting energy.

As you go through the world of "conditioning" being that air or objects or people, you will find different situations to address. In a pharmaceutical world, or in a hospital or clinic, for example you may need cooling for office work and you may need heating, at the same time in another room, for some biological cultivation for example.

You cannot stop heat movement. All the time heat is moving from hot to cold and it will be, unstoppable (although you can slow it down, with insulation), in one of 3 ways with an instant change from one way to the other, by radiation, convection or conduction, and most likely with a combination of the 3 ways at the same time. I want to underscore that under physics you have no choice or say. Heat will move through the easiest path and this will change instantly if the situation changes.

We have to solve the tempering problem and then it will be advantageous to do it with the most convenient and economical possible way.

quote:

Originally posted by Whiteallan:
As you go through the world of "conditioning" being that air or objects or people, you will find different situations to address. In a pharmaceutical world, or in a hospital or clinic, for example you may need cooling for office work and you may need heating, at the same time in another room, for some biological cultivation for example.

You cannot stop heat movement. All the time heat is moving from hot to cold and it will be, unstoppable (although you can slow it down, with insulation), in one of 3 ways with an instant change from one way to the other, by radiation, convection or conduction, and most likely with a combination of the 3 ways at the same time. I want to underscore that under physics you have no choice or say. Heat will move through the easiest path and this will change instantly if the situation changes.

We have to solve the tempering problem and then it will be advantageous to do it with the most convenient and economical possible way.

When I wrote my observations I had only home heating in mind. yes in commercial industrial heating there may be situation when both heating and cooling are required simultaniously. But not in home conditioning.
If by some way your system may be having breathable tubing in which water can get evapourated to manage temperature as well as humidity in the house. ie incorporating all radiation, conduction, convection and evapouration.
But it is ALSO incorporating the same radiation, conduction and convection for heating which is done by other radiation heating cooling products in the market. Thats what my point is. in working your product is not unique.
It many be uniquie in look, using less amount of watter . and as per your claim it may be very good. but it uses the same working principle used by other radiant heating and cooling products of heat transfer by mostly radiation, some natural convection and little conduction. Product may be unique to look at but the technology is not unique.

Nobody own neither physics nor biology. There are different ways to use technology to reach a solution to a problem. Certainly some technologies will be better than others or the best to a certain solution. Therefore there is enough work for everybody and that is good. The consumer has choices and will make some decision better than others and will have to live with that. Many times it will be a compromised choice for sure.

It seems to me that you are a little defensive like this is a contest of what is better and your product is being unfairly challenged. I never even realize that in the beginning of this forum’s chat but now I can see a pattern here. I am sure that your products will be the best to solve some or most of someone’s problems. That is also good and I welcome different approaches for the consumer’s benefit even to the same problem.

Dear Whiteallan,
If I have annoyed you by not agreeing to your saying that your product is not unique then I am sorry. I did not mean to annoy you but spoke what I felt.
I was not defending my product. I have never said anything about my product. and I dont want to. This forum is for discussin different Air conditioning techniniques ( heating cooling) .
and it is a healthy discussion and everybody has the right to give his sincere opinion.
its not me to whom you will sell your product . and if I say something about your product it would not matter. It is the customers opinion about the product that will matter . Customer hass all the products to chose from and if he will heard about your product fo the first time they will bound to ask what is different in your product which other products dont have. and there opinion will matter. If they will make a opinion about your product then it will matter.
If you will discuss your product here on this forum then you will recieve comments about your product good or bad from people of the industry manufacturing or dealing in different products also. and this preperation ground to see what type of questions or opinions can come from your customers and be perpared for that.
If you felt that I was trying to defend my product. then it is wrong my product is entirely different then yours. the only similarity is that it also works on same principle of radiant heating.

I keep reading over and over how "complicated", "sofisticated", and "complex" multi zone hydronic systems are. Says the two guys that (probably) haven't installed one, anyway. It is not complicated to add another one, two, three zones to a one zone system.

I've heard how electric thermostats are so much better. Aren't all thermostats?

Plumbers MAY be biased towards hydronics, but heating contractors (there is a difference) really don't care what they put in, as long as A)they can get the job, B) they'll make a couple bucks, and C)they won't have major issues or complaints about it. Most heating contractors are happy to install electric radiant, after they have educated the consumer about operating costs. That is, assuming there is an operating difference in his area like most of the country.

If you ask me, the only bias going on here is from the electric supporters. The guys that don't want to use it are RIGHTFULLY shying away from it because it costs too much to run in their part of the country. Most of these guys don't have a problem doing a small bath and such. Just not the entire house.

This thread is just oozing with flat out exaggerations, lies, and misunderstandings about hydronic systems. Again, I don't care what system is installed in my house, as long as it makes economic sense. They are both comfortable, and if either are difficult to operate then shame on the installer.

Exaggerations... Your system will leak, they are just too complicated, all installs cost more, there are all these moving parts to continuously fail, the maintenance is through the roof, electric components are cheap, labor for electric is always cheap. You paint this picture that it takes a PHD and a million bucks to install a hydronic heating system, while electric can be installed by any 12 year old foreign exchange student for pennies.

Lies... Telling customers to budget $250.00/year on maintenance.

Misunderstandings... Lots of misunderstandings. Warms just can't seem to grasp how if you heat water up to 180, and blend it back down, that you aren't losing efficiency, per say. The boiler is still operating at it's stated 80+% efficiency, that doesn't change. Your not blending it down with fresh cold water. Cast iron boilers aren't really used in this scenerio hearly as often, btw. 92+ boilers don't require blending. Or how if water goes out at 130*, and comes back at 110*, that the heat left in the pipe is somehow wasted??? I'm not saying that there isn't "any" heat lost to an unconditioned space, but most cases it don't amount to a hill of beans.

I know LOTS of women that think that changing the oil in a car is some sort of voodoo magic too. Sure, mod/con boilers have no place being installed by a DIY'er, and most electric could probably be muddled through by a DIY'er, I'll give you that. But again, thats no reason to install it where I live. Small areas, great! No reason whatsoever to add a boiler to heat my bathroom. But you sell me a system that I've seen all too often, that costs twice as much to run, and I'm going to be pissed off. If it's cheaper to run (or at least comparable) where you live, more power to you! If I move there, I'll look at it.

Dear RPA Guest,
You proved our doubts about hydronic in your own post

quote:

that the heat left in the pipe is somehow wasted??? I'm not saying that there isn't "any" heat lost to an unconditioned space, but most cases it don't amount to a hill of beans.

quote:

Sure, mod/con boilers have no place being installed by a DIY'er, and most electric could probably be muddled through by a DIY'er, I'll give you that.

We all as professionals are here to provide radiant heating products to the customer and in tern make some money out of it. In US there seems to be a much bias for radiant hydronic heating as compared to radiant electric heating and that is what I oppose and dont understand. I hydronic you really need a skilled installer to install the system as you yourself agree and electric system can be installed by a DIY'er as agreed by you again and which clearly shows that the installation of an electric system is much simpler and easy .
For ecnomic point of view for a professional installer if he takes a weeks time to install a hydronic system then electric system will take less than a day which means less labour cost ie less installation cost.

Performance wise there is no difference in any system each type of system performs as good as other as both work on principles of radiation . the only difference is that in hydronic system heat is generated at other point (The boiler) and used at other point (the room) where as in electric system the heat is generated right below where it is required (the room) hence response time in electric system is much faster. and ofcourse the maintainance cost in hydronic system is much more then an electric system which do not have a maintinance problem as there is no movable part that will need replacement at regular interval.

People are believing that electric systems are costly to run than hydronic system and hence they should not be used in bigger spaces. to check this out I tried to do calculation in article in general section "which is cheap electric raiant V/s hydronic radiant" . I got feedback on prices of hydronic fuels from one person and based on them I did my calculations and from them at the current rate electric system was ne of the cheapest. you can check out the calculations and see if I have taken any figures wrong and I will correct them.
Most of the hydronic people when asked about cost say it depends. but if some person whishes to compare two system he needs to know the installation costs.
I am not against hydronic It is a good and proven system but I am against people giving negative feedback about electric without giving substantial proof by just saying it depends.
A plumber willalways promote a hydronic system as it utilises his skills. but I feel that a heating contractor should give both the options to his/her customer and tell that both the systems are good with hydronic the installation plus system cost will be this much and with electric system the cost will be this much. then let the customer decide which system to go for.
With the cost of electricity increasing at and average rate of 10% and cost of fossil fuels increasing at a rate of around 70-90 % . you will yourself see more and more people opting for electric in comming time but for that to happen customer should get a choice and that will happen when heating contractor will keep both type of systems in there ofer and will understand pros and cons of both the system and without being bias about one perticular system tell about pros and cons of both the systems to customer and let him take the dicision.
But one thing Which I feel is that since if an electric system can be installed in one day then to install hydronic system in that same area it will take more than a week time that means. from the same house if electric system is installed contracter will get just one days labour cost where as in hydronic system he will get 7 days labour cost means that per house he will earn more if he promotes hydronic system and that why people are biased about hydronic .

What I saw is that people feel electric systems are

quote:

With the cost of electricity increasing at and average rate of 10% and cost of fossil fuels increasing at a rate of around 70-90 % . you will yourself see more and more people opting for electric in comming time but for that to happen customer should get a choice and that will happen when heating contractor will keep both type of systems in there ofer and will understand pros and cons of both the system and without being bias about one perticular system tell about pros and cons of both the systems to customer and let him take the dicision.

You see, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Here you are telling people that electricity is going up 10%, and gas is going up 70-90%. WHERE??????????? False misleading information, again. Maybe in some small area, but for the majority of the country, that is a flat out lie. I just got back from Florida, where the headline in the St. Petersberg paper was that both gas and electricity was going up 10%. Thats Florida. Where I live, basically the same thing, as they are rising together.

Where are you talking about?

read the thread, he posted the graph and the information he was basing that on.

Here in the northeast, oil prices and propane prices have absolutely skyrocketed in the last two years. Electricity hasn't.... yet.

If thats true, my appologies. I'll look closer. Still not true where I live, though!

Dear Rpa Guest,
I am not trying to mislad anybody I just wrote what I saw in articles and grpahs publihed by experts. I also provided the link of the graph in the forum to get everyones opinion( as Rob pointed out ..thank you Rob for that).
I am not against Hydronic system they are good system but my point of view is that electric systems are cheaper and the common opinion that they are costlier to run is in present scenario a myth only and doesn't hold ground. My only point of view is that all the heating contractors should start adding electric system in there ofering.
Maybe this would revutionalise the radiant underfloor heating industry because at present the radiant heating is considred premium product for the rich as innitial installation cost is quite high. With electric radiant the innitial cost will be quite low which will make it afordable for less affluent also who want to try the comfort of radiant heat but at present cannot afford the high upfront costs. Hence a new market will open up which I think is quite big.
All the radiant heating contractors need to think about it and think differently in this period of recession.

This is a very simplistic reply, but I think less is more. First, all of the various radiant systems are desinged to either solve certain problems, or be used for certain applications. However, in this era of eco-friendly, green thinking, carbon footprint mindedness, what is really at issue with radiant heating, electric or otherwise, is its impact on natural resources. The hydronic system requires natural gas to heat the water and it is expensive to install. If the idea is conservation of the earth and its resources then a move away from natural gas would be preferred. That can be accomplished with electric radiant infrared systems. Such systems installed throughout a home or business reduce or eliminate the use of natural gas, and more importantly, since it is decentralized heating, if one element goes out (they rarely do) all of the other units in the home still function and the home remains heated. If the boiler goes out, then the heat system is out. Even more so for a furnace. If the furnace goes out the house is cold, if it is heated with decentralized electric radiant, one bad panel won't take down the heating system.