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Re: a way to get the return water hotter?
while i dont understand it all, if the water is leaving the heater several feet down and showing 120* on the gauge, im not sure how its a heater issue. to me the loss is in the floor. ive yet to understand head loss though. the heater being 199,999BTU that can supply 6-8 showers, you'd think that can have any amount thrown at it and be fine. my house water pressure though is 70psi so thats a big difference from 13psi on the pump. wouldnt more psi and a bigger pump help out?
Correct - water is leaving the heater at 120F. The issue is that you want ~3-4 GPM and you're not getting that because the tankless is too restrictive for that pump to flow that rate. You're likely getting <1GPM through the floor. The tankless is not undersized, quite the opposite. The issue is you're not getting enough flow because this appliance wasn't designed to be used like this and the set up isn't sufficient to address this mistake. Right now, you have a minivan with bald tires and 800HP.
Re: a way to get the return water hotter?
Physics is such a nuisance. Your delta T and flow determine -- very exactly -- how many BTUh you are putting into the slab. The slab characteristics determine, then, whether its temperature will rise, stay the same, or fall.
You have two choices. First, increase the flow rate. That will give you a smaller delta T and, for the same source temperature, a higher overall slab temperature (eventually) -- provided, of course, that your boiler can produce enough power. Second, reduce the heat loss from the slab.
You have two choices. First, increase the flow rate. That will give you a smaller delta T and, for the same source temperature, a higher overall slab temperature (eventually) -- provided, of course, that your boiler can produce enough power. Second, reduce the heat loss from the slab.
Re: New Main Vents
I had a plumber master vent the risers. They taped the riser pipe before the shutoff valve of the radiator with a Gorton #2. This way the entire riser vents quickly.
question
2
Re: How to replace a 2" pipe leaking between two fixed t's
There are perfectly round small holes that seem to have been plugged and were fine until they were subjected to an over fill of the boiler. Very strange. Definitely not corrosion. I have to check again but I do not think there is any play even to get a pair of flanges. Hmm did not consider 2 pair. That would leave enough space to get the ends in. Also means $200 of fittings. Beginning to think copper with slip coupling
will be the cheapest.
will be the cheapest.
Re: Boiler gauge
Please post some pictures close up and farther away so we can get a better idea of what you have.
If you have a steam boiler? And from your description you probably do.
If this is your first experience with Steam? Than those noises you are hearing are common.
If you have a steam boiler? And from your description you probably do.
If this is your first experience with Steam? Than those noises you are hearing are common.
Intplm.
1
Re: Boiler gauge
Whether it's steam or hot water, the best thing to do is to get a competent service provider to go over everything. You're going to need one anyway so you might as well get them now.
Then they can show you how to properly maintain your system-filling/bleeding, etc. And they can see if there are any issues that you should address before winter arrives.
Then they can show you how to properly maintain your system-filling/bleeding, etc. And they can see if there are any issues that you should address before winter arrives.
Re: Understanding heat flows in high mass heating systems in old houses
@PeteA, I forgot to mention that our boilers start cold, and run until the thermostats satisfy. That typical takes around 45 minutes, during which time the water temp goes from 68 to maybe 130-140 max in the boiler, and maybe 125 in the radiators.
Then our radiators themselves average around 300 lbs each, times 13 rads, for about 4000 pounds of cast iron. Even more thermal mass. (Since the specific heat capacity of cast iron is only 1/9th that of water, this is like 450 lbs of water or so in terms of heat capacity. So now we have an equivalent heat capacity of 750+450=1200 lbs water.)
So add up the masses of your cast iron rads and the water they contain. You may be surprised.
You may be surprised to find that most of the water volume is in the radiators themselves, not the piping. In our case, we have about 80 gallons in the cast iron rads, about 45 in the piping, and about 10 gallons in the boiler itself. So you can see that even if we replaced all the high-volume piping with Pex, we'd still have over 90 gallons of water, or about 750 pounds. That's still a lot of thermal mass.
I will be testing something similar this winter in my house but my setup is different since I kept the radiators but I've removed a lot of the thermal mass of water out of the system when I repiped everything to pex al pex.
Then our radiators themselves average around 300 lbs each, times 13 rads, for about 4000 pounds of cast iron. Even more thermal mass. (Since the specific heat capacity of cast iron is only 1/9th that of water, this is like 450 lbs of water or so in terms of heat capacity. So now we have an equivalent heat capacity of 750+450=1200 lbs water.)
So add up the masses of your cast iron rads and the water they contain. You may be surprised.
jesmed1
3
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