Customer Reviews

Modern Hydronic Heating: For Residential and Light Commercial Buildings

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Excellent book for a DIYer planning on installing a hydronic radiant system. Gives basically all the information that you need to plan and install a full system. Some of the topics are pretty involved and require some basic math, but the book walks you through everything with great detail. Covers:
1) Determining heating load estimates
2) Required water temperatures and flow rates
3) Pipe installation, including pumps and expansion tanks
4) Several approaches to zoning
5) Laying PEX tube for radiant panels

The book was very useful. The only drawback was the "Hydronics Design Kit" was not included. This costs an additional $76 from Oikos.com and is referred to many times in the book. Therefore, it is almost a requirement during use of the book.

This book is THE resource for any homeowner planning to install radiant floor heat. It is written as a textbook for HVAC students, but it serves equally well as a reference and informative design resource for the average homeowner. John Siegenthaler is recognized by his peers as one of the outstanding radiant heating engineers. I highly recommend this book.

This textbook is the kind you might want to use for a college course on Hydronic Heating Design. It mentions a software program (not included) that must have been used in conjuction with the creatation of this text. Great explainations and examples along with exercises at the end of each chapter. Well worth the price.

this is an excellent book. i have an engineering background, and this book has the level of detail and scientific rigor i find useful. i am using it to design my own system.

This book was an excellent source of information on hydronic floor heating. It was easy to read, had complete information and was very helpful in the planning stages of our construction project.

Although pricey, I would recommend buying this book if you plan to put in radiant floor heating yourself. I looked at the other books which just scratched the surface and found this one was a complete guide to what I needed. Don't waste your money on the others unless you just want some general information.
The author of this book knows what he's writing about.

I am a special projects manager for a major tankless water heater company. I bought this book to further my knowledge of hydronic and radiant heating so I could better assist our customers when they call me for advice.

I have some experience with plumbing in the solar field and have attended a class at Uponor, so I come to this book with an amateur's level of experience.

I have only started the book, but I can say that it is extremely complete and well written. From what I have come across in trade journal articles that deal with our business, John Siegenthaler is no doubt the "Rajah of
Radiant" and all things hot water.

I use it constantly now as a reference book to learn and to help others. I plan to use it someday soon to help design my own radiant system in my solar powered straw-bale retirement home "out yonder" somewhere.

The reason I rated it as a 4 instead of a 5 is because I could not find anything about using tankless heaters as a heat source. John covers everything from normal residential gas fired tanks to high efficiency complex boilers, but doesn't address tankless which is becoming more and more popular with radiant because of the low temperature requirements (85º ~ 100º).

This second edition is dated 2004. Unfortunately, hydronic technology is moving at warp speed and we are already in 2007!

this is really an excellent book. you can use this book to build a system from scratch with confidence. all information that could possibly be important is inside but the way it is organized you don't have to read the whole thing and you can skip around. really well written. good job. also incuded is detailed information on many possible unusal configurations including wood fired hot water systems.

This book is a must if you are an ambituos DYI'r installing a hyrdronic heating system in your home. The book is a text book used for educating HVAC people and engineers. It covers everything that you could possibly need to know about this type of heating.

I definitly would not have attempted to install the system without understanding all the variables in designing an efficient and balanced hydronic system. The free information on the web doesn't cut it in my opinion.