Save Energy at Home; Insulate Your Heating System Piping

Insulating heating piping saves energy.

If your home is equipped with hot-water baseboard heating, you might be losing some energy if your distribution piping is not insulated. You can insulate that piping and save on energy costs.
Things You'll Need:
• Foam pipe insulation, available at home centers and hardware stores.
• Vinyl tape
• Ladder
• Razor-knife

The debate:
While it is sometimes debated whether or not insulating heating piping might end up a trade-off because exposed heating pipes might help to keep basement areas warmer, overall it is best to keep the liquid in the piping as hot as possible while it does its heating job in the space it was designed for.

The physics:
In order to heat your main living area with hot-water baseboard heating, your system relies on water heated by your boiler being distributed through fin-tubed baseboard radiator units, which are designed to draw cooler air from the floor level, up across the fin-tubes and out the upper slots in the baseboard units. This is called "convection".

Efficiencies:
In order to get the most from this "convection" principle, it is imperative that the water being distributed be as hot as possible, since it will be "giving up" its heat at each baseboard unit.

If the water begins to cool down because the piping under the floor is not insulated; and basements are always cooler unless they are finished and heated; then you will experience an energy waste, because your boiler will have to cycle more frequently to keep the water hot enough to do its intended job.

The remedy:
Insulating heating piping is not too difficult, as long as the piping is relatively accessible in your basement area. Of course, if your home has only a crawl-space, accessibility might be more challenging; but it is even more important in such cases, for obvious reasons.