Best Of
Re: A Tribute to our local, electronic savant...
Sorry to hear of the loss of your friend. My condolences. Sounds like a truly great guy.
Re: Can you use a tankless water heater to lets say Heat a small pool? only for a day!
Does this pool have a pump on it like a hot tub would? Or is it just a open tub of water?
If it has a spa pump, you would pipe a bypass so just a portion of the water goes through the tank or tankless. Neither a tank or tankless could handle 15- 20 gpm that a pool or spa pump would be flowing.
If it is just a tub of water, just use a small stainless recirculation pump to move 4-6 gpm through the 3/4" connections on the tank. A typical gas fired residential tank is around 35,000 btu/hr, so you don't need a lot of flow. Same for a tankless 4- 6 gpm is what they are designed for.
You could use a couple short garden hoses for this if it is a temporary setup?
For a permanent heater you might want some nicer connections into the pool for larger piping.
The pipe size and heater size is all dependent on how quickly you want to heat the water.
Q= 8.33 X volume X temperature rise
8.33 X 600 X (110-55°)= 274,890 btu required
274,890 ÷ 30,000 btu/ hr water heater input 9 hours or so
Plus surface loss, so cover the tub while heating to lessen loss to ambient air, a foam pool cover for example.
I visited some Mikvah baths in Brooklyn with the plumbers that were piping them, a few years back. Moses and his son Pinkas hang around HH from time to time. The bath was drained after every use, refilled and needed to be heated back up within 20 minutes.
There were multiple pools in this building so several million BTU boilers piped with 6" pipe fed these copper HX that were under the stairs into the pool.
So anything is doable
hot_rod
Re: Yellow spot after soot up
Returned today to re-setup the burner. To start I pulled smoke and checked combustion the numbers were nearly identical and I was pleased to see that CO an CO/AF had improved. Also the yellow spot was clear which I didn't expect.
I set the head back to position "2" and decreased air, getting a 1 smoke and back to a trace. Then adjusted the draft for .03 OF and readjusted to a trace, added air to get -1.5ish CO2 and check for a zero smoke.
@SuperTech my final CO2 came in as you commented
measurement description is at bottom of table
Date | 3/8/26 | 3/10/26 | 3/10/26 | 3/10/26 | 3/10/26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Time | 20:54 | 10:11 | 10:25 | 10:29 | 11:00 |
MFR | Buderus | Buderus | Buderus | Buderus | Buderus |
model | G115WS/3 | G115WS/3 | G115WS/3 | G115WS/3 | G115WS/3 |
Burner | Riello | Riello | Riello | Riello | Riello |
nozzle | 55-60A | 55-60A | 55-60A | 55-60A | 55-60A |
Pump Pres | 185 | 185 | 185 | 185 | 185 |
Head/static plate | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Firing Rate | = 0.75 | = 0.75 | = 0.75 | = 0.75 | = 0.75 |
Draft Breach | -0.04 | ||||
Draft OF | 0.03 | 0.03 | |||
Tstack | 612 | 550 | 510 | 521 | 567 |
O2 | 5.2 | 5.2 | 1.6 | 2.3 | 4.2 |
CO | 99 | 37 | 60 | 60 | 40 |
CO AF | = 132 | = 49 | = 65 | = 67 | = 50 |
EFF | 79 | 81 | 84 | 83 | 81 |
ExAir | 31 | 31 | 7.7 | 11.5 | 23.4 |
CO2 | 11.8 | 11.8 | 14.5 | 13.98 | 12.55 |
AT | 53 | 53 | 53 | 53 | 53 |
Net Stack | 559 | 497 | 457 | 468 | 514 |
Comment | yellow spot | Pre test | 1 smoke | trace | trace -1.43 |
@HydronicMike Once the other readings were steady CO was flat as well.
CO during burner start
CO during burner shuts down
I truly appreciate everyone's help and will appreciate any further comments
Robert_H
Re: The nuance of steam heat balancing: Why theory isn't always reality
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.
DanPike
Re: A Tribute to our local, electronic savant...
didn’t no him personally, but I’ve been in that shop many times 20+ years ago.
RIP Joe
pecmsg
A Tribute to our local, electronic savant...
Big Joe Carraher was our go-to guy for boiler controls and electronics that no one else could figure out how to fix or employ correctly. From The Brooklyn-Queens border out to Eastern Long Island, baffled contractors, Master Electricians, and homeowners would come from far and wide to Joe's counter at Christ Plumbing Supply (est. 1810) in New Hyde Park.
Joe would hand draw a schematic for you and being in the business for 60 years would show you the single most important thing: interfacing ancient controls to talk nice with the state-of-the art. No one was better! Joe was all.about keeping costs down and reusing and repurposing what you had to work with...lessons he learned under fire in Vietnam.
On many occasions, we marveled at Joe flipping over a control, studying the circuit board with a magnifying 🔎 glass and then saying:
"Ok...pass me my soldering Iron."
Big Joe cut his teeth on the front lines in Vietnam repairing Tanks and APCs under fire and through treacherous mine fields From 1968-1970 Joe fixed, repaired and rebuilt M48A3 Patton Tanks, M551 Sheridan Tanks and M113 Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicles with The Legendary Blackhorse Regiment, 11th Cav.
Joe did his own taxes and anyone's he could help, built computers and could figure anything out. After service in The 'Nam, Joe learned Hvac and had his own very successful business in Brooklyn for many years.
Around 1999, he packed it in and became Co-owner of Christ Plumbing Supply with Chris Smith, where he held court at the counter for the next 25 yrs.
Joe and Chris are "Fambly" (John Steinbeck) to me. How blessed I am to have such High Caliber business associates who became Fambly? Life is hard, but Life is Good! Yesterday Joe was buried with Full, U.S. Army Honors 🎖 at Calverton National Cemetery. A Life lived to the fullest! Love you man, "Matty Boy"
Re: Baptismal pool boiler set up..
At the First Baptist Church in the Back Bay section of Boston, built in the 1870s, the baptismal font had a cast iron one pipe steam radiator in it. The air vent was piped up above the flood rim. Simple and effective.
bburd
Why is a steam burn so much worse than a hot water? This weeks video
While doing research for this video, I was surprised that a steam burn is much worse than a boiling water burn. I remember as an apprentice the journeyman told me that water was worse because it sticks to you clothes. I guess youre never too old to learn something new.
Re: Yellow spot after soot up
I asked that question here about 30 years ago.
I think the answer is still the same:
TOO MUCH AIR. Your flame is too lean. the residual soot that was not vacuumed out completely is making you have a #2 or higher smoke test from an otherwise clean flame. After a week, go back and reduce the air mixture. (probably from the #2 setting back to #1 setting) and see if you get a zero smoke with no yellow spot. That yellow spot is unburned oil vapor that is getting blown out by the excess air
