A: That would depend on the water temperature and the flow rate. If you scroll down the Home Depot product listing page you will come to a section entitled Product Details. If you expand that section, you will find PDFs of the product documents. Open the brochure and you will find a BTU output chart on page 4. I have been in the plumbing field for a long time. I believe use the figure 580 BTUs per lineal foot when talking about residential baseboard as do most plumbers. For example, if some tells me that have a 100 feet of fin tube in their house, I assume they need a boiler that has an output of at least 58000 BTUs (100 X 580= 58,000) to meet the system capacity. I also work with the assumption that ¾” copper tube can carry 45,000 BTUs. Therefore I know that the maximum footage of baseboard I should put on a zone is 75’ (45000/580=77.5862) Chris 978 651 33001
A: No it is not 1" the element is 3/4" inside diameter copper.
A: yes pair of shears or a hacksaw
A: Yes, they can be cut shorter
A: Yes. Use a grinder with a metal cut off wheel or a hack saw with a fine metal blade if you don’t have a grinder.
A: Yes, use tin snips and a reciprocating saw with a fine metal cutting blade.
A: Enclosure only is not offered with the intention that it be used to replace older baseboard enclosure that has become worn or damage over time. Although people attempt this off label use all the time. Those who attempt to run into varying degrees of success. Sometimes it’s possible to change the enclosure with the element in place. Sometimes it’s impossible to do so without damaging the element. The reason baseboard enclosure is offered without element is that it is often used as a pipe chase. Say a wall is 10’ long but the heating load only requires 5’ of element. I may run a 5’ piece of baseboard with element followed by a 5’ piece without element. That way the wall has visual continuity and the enclosure can hide the heating pipe if it needs to continue on into the next room. I use a chops saw to cut baseboard. I make sure to wear protective clothing and glasses as the metal is sharp. I also make sure I secure the pieces I am going to cut. You don’t want it to become a projectile. As an apprentice I leaned to cut it with tin snips. This takes a little finesse. It is important that you use snips designed to cut straight. I learned the hard way. Different snips are designed to cut in different directions. For example left, right, straight, etc. Usually the handle colors are different to indicate the different types that are available. So again if you need to buy a pair, make sure you get ones that are designed for straight cuts. If you attempt to make a straight cut with snips designed to cut towards the left you will find it impossible to do so. Also it is a good idea to practice cutting on a section to be discarded before you attempt the critical cut.
A: I am not sure I understand your question. If you are asking me if this product is sold as each the answer is yes.
A: No. Slantfin 30 Series baseboard cannot handle steam. It is for use with forced hot water only. Steam requires a larger pipe diameter. Slantfin 30 series utilizes a ¾” copper tube element. For steam you need 11/4” or larger. Even when using 11/4” element, putting fin tube on a steam system is not easy. The piping must be done appropriately so that steam and the resulting condensate do not come in contact with each other. If this occurs the system will bang. It is never as simple as removing a steam radiator and just replacing it with fin tube. Steam is a forgotten art. When working on steam you must remember that the newest steam systems are typically one hundred years old. So when working on or modifying them you must follow the plumbing principals from that time. Many modern methods and products will not work with steam. Chris 978 651 3301
A: yes it includes the cover plate and tube and fin unless you buy the enclosure only
A: Yes, it comes with the front cover plate. It comes with what is shown in the pictures.
A: Yes, and includes one slice plate to join two units together. Does not include end caps.
A: No. These are for a hot water boiler. The do not work with forced hot air. You would need to run ductwork, but that is hard to do with a floor furnace.
A: My area of expertise is boilers and hydronic heat, not hot air or floor furnaces. However, based on my years of experience I would say no. That would not be safe and would not work. Floor furnaces typically do not have blowers they work by convection. They are space heaters. Therefore there would be nothing to force the air through the vents. Putting ductwork or anything over the grill would restrict the convection, cause the unit to overheat and cause a potentially dangerous situation. For a definitive answer I would contact the manufacture of the floor furnace.
A: There is no universal consistent relationship between square footage of floor space and how much heating capacity you need to install. When it is suggested there is, the formulas typically end up oversizing the product in the vast majority of cases which greatly decreases the efficiency and longevity of the equipment and disrupts the heating balance between rooms. As I am sure you can envision the same structure if located in Alaska is going to need a lot more capacity than it would if located in Florida. And a room with 3 outside walls is going to need more heating capacity than an interior room with no outside walls. The proper way to size hydronic baseboard is to do a heat loss calculation. There are many free programs on line that will do this for you. Basically you enter room sizes, window sizes, construction type, geographic location, etc. and the program will calculate how much heat the structure will lose on the coldest hour of the coldest day of the typical year. I typically use the Slant Fin heat loss calculator that I downloaded onto my smart phone. It is available at the Apple and Droid ap stores for free. The heating load will typically be given in a units of BTU’s. Most hydronic heating systems are designed to run using 180F water. Slant Fin 30 series baseboard puts out 580 BTU’s per lineal foot when supplied with 180F water. So using simple math if the heat load calls for 5800 BTU’s you know the room needs to have 10’ of baseboard and element. (5800/580= 10). On a side note baseboard is usually plumbed in zones. Meaning multiple rooms will be piped on one circuit. It is a best practice to make sure the circuit has enough capacity to handle any new rooms added and to follow the same heating methodology employed on the rest of the circuit. Baseboard is used as part of a heating system and every system is different. Also a system is only as good as its weakest link. If you would like to talk about you specific system please feel free to give me a call. Chris 978 651 3301
A: You will need to calculate your btu requirements by factoring your wall construction, insulation, number and size of windows and doors etc. There are many calculators online or if you contact the baseboard manufacturer directly, they will help you as well. They are real nice guys and actually answer the phone!
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