Best Of
Re: New vaporstat
probably the vaporstat and its calibration. that design is kind of notorious for cutting out then never cutting in again intermittently if you have the main set too low on the non mercury switch version.
mattmia2
Re: Rinnai RUC80i water doesn't hit target temp at fixtures
The Rinnai is limited to 140F.
The only question that begs is how long is the piping from the HWH to the fixtures?
If you run the water at the fixture for five minutes………….what's the output temperature?
Additionally, is there any possibility that the unit was piped with a tempering valve to limit the temperature to the fixtures to 120F? These are noted to calcify with time and need to be removed and cleaned with citric acid or replaced entirely.
If none of the above, you need to determine if the Rinnai has an output of 140° at the HWH. This is best done with a infrared gun pointed at the copper feed from the HWH. You need a piece of black tape around the copper pipe or you will get erroneous readings from the reflection of the copper.
LRCCBJ
Re: ? actual difference between hot water heaters from supplyhouses and big box stores
All tanks fail from one thing or another. Not all places in the country can meet the low chloride numbers that stainless tanks are listing. But, how many actually check or know that? Do you know your chloride levels?
Chloride levels spike during winter months with all the deicers being used thees days, so you need to check levels throughout the year,
hot_rod
Re: Funny but not so funny
the people that run any big municipal water system have an idea of how much water they put in to the system vs how much gets billed to customers. I suspect the loss is in the 10%-20% range.
mattmia2
Re: Seeking your thoughts regarding a boiler/system upgrade for a small 1980s ranch.
I had a 1000 sq ft ranch that was like a seive and 50,000 btu with 90 feet of baseboard it what it needed. Yours is certainly better insulated and better windows so 40,000 is probably a decent guess.
That being said there is no need to install a larger boiler than the radiation will need.
If it was me, I would use a standard CI boiler and either keep your water tank or install an indirect off the boiler.
If you have an outside chimney which I suspect you probably need a stainless steel liner. A good chimney sweep can do this. You might call one and get a #.
Look up the cost of a new 40,000-50,000 btu CI boiler on line and multiply the cost x4 and you will be in the ballpark.
Peerless or Weil McLain are good choices. Supply House.com has the #s
The biggest obstacle is a good contractor, unfortunately many of them suck.
When your ready post your location or check "find a contractor" on this site. We may know someone who can help.
Re: The "equalizer" is mis-named. It does nothing to equalize anything.
" Why utilize a Hartford Loop at all? Can’t the return line simply be brought into the boiler at a point below the 2-inch mark? Technically, the answer is “yes,” and prior to the implementation of the Hartford Loop, this was a fairly common practice. However, when installers did this, any pressure within the boiler itself would result in water being pushed out of the boiler and directly to the return. Even with the installation of check valves to help eliminate this condition, they often failed in the open position, ending with the same results. So the concept of a pipe to equalize the pressure was realized and implemented, and resulted in water staying in the boiler. "
109A_5
Re: help with dual-coil indirect tank and condensing boiler
Is it a Viessmann tank? It it is any tank with large diameter coils, low pressure drop, then tie them together. This may allow you to drop the boiler temperature down, get the boiler efficiency up. Possibly even get into condensing temperatures. 130 SWT, 120 return or lower.
May as well use both coils.
You have two options for flow direction. Hot boiler into the top gets you hot water quickly. Hot into the bottom first puts the boiler water against the coldest temperature, for best efficiency.
Is there a recirc system on the DHW?
hot_rod
Re: Calling Peerless 63-series Owners: A Venting Mystery
That's a big drop make sure the stack temp doesn't drop to much.
Bob
BobC
Re: Seeking your thoughts regarding a boiler/system upgrade for a small 1980s ranch.
Perhaps I'm interpreting this wrong when you mentioned "Look up the cost of a new 40,000-50,000 btu CI boiler on line and multiply the cost x4 and you will be in the ballpark." Should I take that to mean to install a new cast Iron boiler ought to cost 4 times the cost of the boiler alone? It's not quite a plug and play operation but jeepers that seems spendy. It appears that many of the better regarded CI boilers are about as expensive as a small Lockinvar mod-con that would purr through the shoulder seasons with a good deal of efficiency.
