Baseboard heating as energy savings: the pros and cons

Baseboard heating is intended to save energy for the homeowner by minimizing the effort used by a boiler or heat source to reach the maximum temperature for a heating system. While this is generally true, the statement needs to be examined in more detail to find out how much energy the system can save.

The skirting board system is designed with slim flow and return pipes, which require less water to fill and therefore less energy to heat. Therefore, the statement that a baseboard heating system requires less from the boiler or heat source is true.

However, the duration or amount of active heating in this system can be greater than the combined heated area of ​​a traditional radiator system. So while the boiler or heat source technically works less to achieve the desired temperature, it can work longer to exhaust heat to a larger general area.

This increase in directly heated area is one of the big selling points for a baseboard radiator system. By heating more parts of a room directly (that is, with heat emanating from a nearby source rather than dissipating from a hot radiator at the other end of the room), the baseboard system is potentially capable of delivering more heat. uniform in the room and work at a lower temperature than its equivalent based on radiators.

Of course, the heated plinth system is also a radiator system, only in miniature. So instead of concentrating all the heating power into one solid unit, which is required to expel that heat across the entire cubic area of ​​the space it’s supposed to heat, the skirting board version distributes it.

So in terms of simple physics, the power requirements for both should be about the same. If the baseboard heating system is simply a collection of very small radiators, all drawing power from the same type of boiler and raising the average heat of the room to the same average temperature; so the power they use to do it should be more or less identical.

The difference is that the maximum temperature required to reach medium heat is considerably lower, when the radiant heat source is distributed throughout the room. This means that the boiler or central heating power supply does not have to work too hard and therefore uses one less grade of fuel to reach set temperatures. This is roughly analogous to the difference in fuel consumption between driving a fast car and driving it at a more moderate pace.

The significant savings offered by the heated baseboard system occur when the property owner connects it to lower energy heat sources; and install new insulation to go with the new system. By connecting heated baseboards to a heat source with a lower peak temperature (such as an air source heat pump), the property owner reduces the amount of high energy output the system can deliver. The heat source can easily operate at lower average temperatures because (as noted) heated baseboards do not need to be heated to the same degree to provide the overall temperature required for the home.

So the basic conclusion that can be drawn is this: a heated baseboard system has the ability to save energy compared to more traditional central heating systems. But he needs help to reach his full potential. Thermostats and zoned heating controls help; as well as the new insulation and the inclusion of a low power heat source at the heart of the installation. The more energy-saving factors a homeowner combines, the more remarkable the energy-saving effect will be.