John Siegenthaler: Hydronics Workshop

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Few would argue that fin-tube baseboard was the “flagship” heat emitter in North American hydronic heating systems through much of the 20th century. 

I recently designed a system for my daughter’s new home with a water-to-water geothermal heat pump as its main heat source. 

Ask a heating pro about the energy used by the systems they design or install.

One of the benefits of modern hydronic heating is the ability to use multiple types of heat emitters in the same system. 

This was quite a year for me on the home front. On fairly short notice, my wife and I found out that our daughter Heidi and her husband Andy would be building a house about 500 feet down the road from us. 

Because they generate heat intermittently, renewable energy heat sources such as solar thermal collectors and pellet boilers require thermal storage tanks. So do storage-based systems using off-peak electricity, or micro combined heat and power (MCHP) generation.

When water is heated, the space required for each molecule increases. Any attempt to prevent this expansion will be met by tremendous forces.