Boilers - Home Heating Steam and Hot Water Systems - hot water toe kick radiator

I have an 1918 house with lots of cast iron radiators, and a 2 year old boiler. The whole house is on one zone (2 stories). The system works pretty well, and is pretty well balanced.
As part of the kitchen redesign, the designer suggested a toe kick hot water radiator in the kitchen.
My main question is if I can put it on the same zone as all the cast iron, or do I need to run it on its own zone, due to the different characteristics of the 2 types of radiators?

Or look at it this way... can you think of any room in the house that is more deserving of its own zone? People cluster there, things are cooked there, sometimes even burned there with windows left open as a result...

That said, I'd I'd still try and see about cast iron baseboard if you can't keep a rad. Do the heatloss calcs, maybe even pipe it with a TRV so that the room isn't still heating when other heat sources are at play in there.

How quiet is your house and what impact might a kick-space heater have on the overall sound level? Could be none, but it is worth thinking about beforehand.

Does your system have continuous circulation?

Usually I believe it's recommended they go on their own loop because of the massive amounts of BTUs they pull out of the water. If it's supply is coming from an existing series loop of rads/bbs/etc, the incoming water may not be hot enough to get rated BTU output. The water temp coming out is usually quite cool, and if it's in a series loop with other rads/bbs/etc those downstream emitters will suffer badly from the cooler water.

Not necessarily on it's own _zone_ , it could be part of another one, but on it's own _loop_ , with home runs to the boiler on the supply and return. In other words, in parallel with an existing zone loop.

You certainly could use Who's suggestion of adding a TRV on that loop to regulate the heat to the kitchen if desired.

thanks for yoru help.. but what is a trv? the circulator pump is only on when the boiler is firing. Also, all the radiators take the supply off one pipe, then discharge into another. There are no radiators other then the old cast iron.
I am guessing that for any amount of boiler circulation time, the new toe kick heater with a fan would spit out a ton more heat then the cast ironradiators? I would hate to be heating the kitchen too much.....

If you've got a 2 pipe system, one supply pipe, and one return pipe, I don't think you have any problem replacing the kitchen rad with the toe kick.

A TRV is a Thermostatic Radiator Valve which is an unpowered valve that senses the room temperature and opens or closes the supply to the radiator to regulate the heat. I'm just not sure how you would go about hooking it up to a toe kick. You might be better off with a line voltage thermostat on the wall controlling the fan in the kicker.

The fan in the kicker has a control that keeps it off until there is hot (enough) water in the unit. If for example you were cooking, or had a bunch of people in the kitchen and the rest of the house was calling for heat, the kitchen could overheat. If you wired a thermostat on the wall in series with that fan, it could turn that fan off and better regulate the kitchen temp.

But again, if you've got 2 pipes, you are good to go.

Unless your kitchen is a real "problem area" with regard to heating and truly needs more heat, I would stay away from a toekick, for the reasons others mentioned above. Figure out a place for a real radiator if you must.

The designer/installer often tries to sell these things as "just think of the gentle warm air blowing on your feet while you do the dishes on a cold evening" or some such. Well, if you've been cooking away for the last couple hours or have a bunch of people in the kitchen, about the last thing you want is hot air on your feet. It's hot enough already.

Temperatures in kitchens are notoriously hard to control and predict due to the large number of variables (occupancy, appliances, etc. etc.). IMHO, a kicker isn't worth it. By the time you soup it up with supplemental controls, it's own piping, etc....

the reason for the toe kick is that there is NO place for a radiator.....

Any place for cast iron baseboards? Could you run pex and plate under the floor?

their is no place for baseboard either. The whole room is either a doorway, an original cabinet that is not alterable, or an appliance.
seems like the options are either a separate zone for the one toe kick radiator; or using a a thermostat on the existing loop, and only sending hot water to the toe kick radiator when the rest of the system is on, and the room with the toe kick calls for heat

Actually, you don't need to control the water to the unit, you will get little heat out of it if you simply control the fan. Just pipe the supply and return, and wire a line voltage thermostat in series with the fan in the unit. Your heating guy should know how to do this.

Here's one manufacturer that seems popular around these parts:

Beacon Morris (http://www.beacon-morris.com/)

Hi- my kitchen toe kick heater has a fan switch on it for hi-low-off. It works great and I love it on cool mornings when I'm walking around barefoot making coffee! When we have guests and we're doing a lot of cooking, I just shut the fan switch off. It's on a loop with several lengths of copper baseboard and it seems to work fine. Steve

That's a good point Steve, just manually shut off the fan if you don't need the heater on. I'd bet 99.9% of the time you could just leave the fan on and be happy !