Best Of
Re: Electric heat is too expensive, very high bills/useage
I would suggest hot water — hydronic — heat as well, but may I suggest using flat panel radiators rather than big cast iron ones? They are somewhat less disruptive to room arrangements, and are much less obvious.
However. There is the question of how to power them. The best solution would be a natural gas fired mod/con boiler. They are small (at least relatively speaking!) and can have direct outside venting and exhaust. Unhappily in some areas of the northeast it is no longer possible to have new natural gas hookups — and in others it is simply not available. Propane, then would be the next best be — also a mod/coon — but considerably more expensive.
Re: Expansion Tank Orientation
If you're concerned about being succinct, perhaps answering the questions you've been asked would be a step in the right direction. We're all trying to help you, but that's impossible when you don't provide the necessary information which is requested of you. Again, how did he determine that the water side was dry? Was the described pressure adjustment process followed?
GroundUp
Re: Indirect HW off steam- shaking circulator
This guy really likes to ignore the instruction manual. (I'm speaking of the height of the circulator). Oppositional Defiance Disorder perhaps.
How high is that port compared to the normal water line? It seems very high.
Re: System 2000 sudden issue
with the digital manager with the red dashes if the return sensor fails you should get an error 100 on the manager which puts it into bypass mode. The circulator will run constantly and the boiler will maintain the high limit temperature and there will be no delay in opening the zone valves. this will cause the boiler to run at a higher temperature but will allow the system to provide heat and hot water. With the display manager with the LCD screen if a return sensor fails you will get an error 100 on the screen and the system will go into bypass mode for 10 minutes to try to reaquire communition with the sensor after 10 minutes the manager will switch to an error 190 classic mode which allows the manager to operate on time instead of temperature like the original classic managers. Either way the failure of a return sensor wont allow the system to lockout or prevent heat or hot water to the house. The sensors are available direct from the factory and not at local part houses
jringel
Re: Expansion Tank Orientation
Whether air or water is on the water side of the x-tank is of no issue. The important thing is the air side that allows the water in the system to expand and contract when properly charged.
I've seen x-tank instructions that say that they should only be mounted vertically and I've called manufacturers that have said that this is for support considerations only. When properly supported, vertical mounting is considered fine.
Re: Gas Shut Off
Nat Grid will NOT shut off the gas in the winter for minor violations.
They may in the mild weather.
pecmsg
Re: Help identifying this. never seen one before
knowing where the other end of about 10 things here are would help greatly.
mattmia2
Re: True oil tank capacity
264 is max on a steel vertical 275 with the full whistle. It could have been a fast fill and it foamed to the whistle.
The fun is to let it show empty on the app, then go measure.
HVACNUT
Re: Better to build pressure or short cycle gas boiler? Downfire?
I'd use a delay relay interlocked with the pressuretrol or vaporstat.
I was always very reluctant to do this because I wanted my safety pressure control (pressuretrol in my case) to be fully separate from anything I added to the pressure control system. This way if my stuff failed due to my own fault, or component failure, the pressuretrol was still there unmolested to shut things down if pressure climbed.
Re: Better to build pressure or short cycle gas boiler? Downfire?
There is no plus side to creating enough pressure in single residential systems to trip a pressure device. Show me a system that has just satisfied its thermostat with pressure in the system and I will show you one that is in the process of overshooting the temperature target a lot more that I will put up with.
If you aren't particularly interested in evening out your heat then read no further. Let the system bounce off a pressure device limit until the tstat says uncle. Running that way is not going to wreck the efficiency or wear out any equipment. If that works for you comfort wise I say just relax and let her rip. That is the way the 100 year old homes around me still running steam are doing it. It gets the job done. It's not breaking the equipment or the bank either. But we all have big boilers and extra intalled radiation that was never intended or needed to run full. So letting the boiler fill it up or nearly so is overshooting plain and simple. It's a roller coaster I moved into 35 years ago and quickly decided I wanted no part of.
But if you are interested to run without pressure (an absolute requirement for even heat) and with significantly improved comfort, the control system must somehow control the length of the burns and the time in between them. There are many ways to do much better with this that are actually quite simple. The standard control isn't one of them.
Using a timer to delay the next firing only after a pressure stop misses the point. To tame a big boiler and produce even heat the control needs to both limit burn times to well short of making enough steam to produce pressure, and then also space the burns out more evenly. Accomplishing that really isn't difficult.
PMJ