I am going to expand my garage from a one to a two car attached. I have a Dayton gas forced hot air unit, I think about 60K btu's, and I have a 50 gallon gas fired hot water heater. Any thoughts as to which one to use for heat here in New York? The thought was possibly using the hot water heater to run baseboard and to heat hot water for my beer brewing setup. Has anyone tried this and how difficult is it, and what do I need to make it work
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Forced Hot Air or Baseboard Heat?
- Thread starter Falthead
- Start date
Franz©
Banned
There are a whole lot of reasons you don't want to use a water heater as a heat sourse for hydronic heating, the biggest being that the efficiency of a water heater flat *****.
Since you mention already having the Dayton gas fired unit, why not just use that? If it's insufficient in size and you really like the hot air concept, you should be able to find a larger one fairly cheap on Craigslist.
Now, brewing and hot water, what are you planning to use the water for?
Obviously there is a need for hot water in cleaning, but beyond that, unless you are into serious quantity, I can't think of a need. Hot water isn't sufficiently hot to accomplish the initial boil.
Since you mention already having the Dayton gas fired unit, why not just use that? If it's insufficient in size and you really like the hot air concept, you should be able to find a larger one fairly cheap on Craigslist.
Now, brewing and hot water, what are you planning to use the water for?
Obviously there is a need for hot water in cleaning, but beyond that, unless you are into serious quantity, I can't think of a need. Hot water isn't sufficiently hot to accomplish the initial boil.
Neither the Dayton or water heater are being used anywhere at the moment and their only job would be in the garage. The Dayton I beleive is of sufficeint size. The water heater is going to have one baseborad along the longest wall (23 feet) and be used to provide hot water for the sink for clean up. Hot water for brewing is supplied by the my brewing system.
Thanks
Thanks
HoosierBuddy
Well-known member
Your Dayton heater will likely heat your garage just fine without any help from a water heater.
Over at healthyheating.com they had an article on potential health effects of combining your domestic hot water and hydronic loop that scared me away from it. They were concerned about the theoretical possibility of Legionaires disease bacteria (or other nasty beasties) breeding in the heat loop and then getting into the domestic water supply. Pretty dangerous if you are using that hot water for showering...because you could breath in the bacteria...which is how it killed all those Legionaires back in the 70's. That was an infestation in the A/C system at the conference facility IIRC.
Anyway...I ended up using a boiler for my hydronic system and split off my house's hot water heater for hot water. One less thing to worry about.
Phil
Over at healthyheating.com they had an article on potential health effects of combining your domestic hot water and hydronic loop that scared me away from it. They were concerned about the theoretical possibility of Legionaires disease bacteria (or other nasty beasties) breeding in the heat loop and then getting into the domestic water supply. Pretty dangerous if you are using that hot water for showering...because you could breath in the bacteria...which is how it killed all those Legionaires back in the 70's. That was an infestation in the A/C system at the conference facility IIRC.
Anyway...I ended up using a boiler for my hydronic system and split off my house's hot water heater for hot water. One less thing to worry about.
Phil
Last edited:
RAYJAY
Well-known member
forced hot air is the way to go. will heat the garage a lot faster than the hot water would
Jeff
Jeff
Franz©
Banned
Phil can you shoot me a link to the Legionella thread? My wiff just happens to be in the Infection Prevention discipline, and is somewhat of an expert.
While Legionella can breed and live in domestic hot water, as Strong Memorial Hospital well knows, the likelyhood is so low it's almost impossible. The original name yielding situation involved vapor from a cooling tower delivering the little nastys into a group of hotel rooms in Philadelphia.
While Legionella can breed and live in domestic hot water, as Strong Memorial Hospital well knows, the likelyhood is so low it's almost impossible. The original name yielding situation involved vapor from a cooling tower delivering the little nastys into a group of hotel rooms in Philadelphia.
HoosierBuddy
Well-known member
http://www.healthyheating.com/tools/Dave Yates H20 vs Boiler.pdf
Note, it is healthyheating.com
I'm editing my original thread, as I thought it was a dot-org.
Phil
Note, it is healthyheating.com
I'm editing my original thread, as I thought it was a dot-org.
Phil
Franz©
Banned
I loved the reference to teenage kids living in the shower, it was a problem with my stepvermine until it annoyed me. The shower aborting effect of adding a pullcord to the ¼trun ball valve serving the hot water side of the shower should never be overlooked when parenting. Actually it may have been the fastest the kid ever moved, and he looked really stupid with a head full of shampoo. You can also bet your *** he rinsed the shampoo out with cold water. He was even dumb enough to believe the shower ran out of hot water.
Interesting view of legionella potential, obviously not written by someone working in the discipline though.
The stagnation references are also pretty far fetched, remember the hot tub display at Home Desperate outbreak.
The writer is also a bit off on his statement on chlorine shocking.
Large commercial systems are far more likely to become breeding and incubation grounds due to hot water storage tanks where legionella can incubate & multiply. Hospitals live in fear of this happening.
The latest outbreak at Strong was from a storage tank, and the hospital did it's best to minimize the community panic by hauling in truckloads of bottled water, for patient and staff consumption. Large propoganda effort as well.
UNFORTUNATELY, right after their PR clown explained how well they were handling the situation on talk radio for 10 minutes, some evil person emailed the talk show pointing out the bottled water was a game of hide the salami, and the method of infection. Result, 1 very pissed off hospital. I guess they should have told the truth and handled the incident properly.
Interesting view of legionella potential, obviously not written by someone working in the discipline though.
The stagnation references are also pretty far fetched, remember the hot tub display at Home Desperate outbreak.
The writer is also a bit off on his statement on chlorine shocking.
Large commercial systems are far more likely to become breeding and incubation grounds due to hot water storage tanks where legionella can incubate & multiply. Hospitals live in fear of this happening.
The latest outbreak at Strong was from a storage tank, and the hospital did it's best to minimize the community panic by hauling in truckloads of bottled water, for patient and staff consumption. Large propoganda effort as well.
UNFORTUNATELY, right after their PR clown explained how well they were handling the situation on talk radio for 10 minutes, some evil person emailed the talk show pointing out the bottled water was a game of hide the salami, and the method of infection. Result, 1 very pissed off hospital. I guess they should have told the truth and handled the incident properly.