Articles by John Siegenthaler, P.E.

We are proud to present the third of five eBooks specifically for the hydronics and radiant heating/cooling market. Brought to you by Plumbing & Mechanical, PM Engineer and Supply House Times, this eBook is a collection of columns and articles from John Siegenthaler, P.E., a well-respected hydronics expert and longtime columnist for PM, pme and Supply House Times.

A contractor is asked to design a hydronic heating system for a modest, super-insulated house in a cold Northern climate. The home’s design load is only 18,000 Btu/h. The owners are planning to install a 12 KW solar photovoltaic electrical system.

An installer was asked to include an air-to-water heat pump into a low-temperature radiant panel heating system supplied by a mod/con boiler.

An installer sets up a zoned distribution system as shown below. To keep it simple, he uses the same size piping for the headers and all the distribution circuits. The heat source is a low-mass, copper-tube boiler with high-flow resistance.

The schematic in Figure 1 represents a drawing I recently reviewed for a proposed system that was to supply three zones of finned-tube based, two zones of low-temperature radiant panel heating, and an indirect domestic water heater.

An installer is asked to install heating in the slab floor of a farm workshop. The owner has already purchased a used cast iron boiler that will run on propane.