Best Of
Re: Expansion Tank Install
I can't quite tell can't quite tell from your photos, But it looks like this handle is the reversible type. If there's enough of an area to swing the handle towards the tank, The handle can be taken off and installed in a one hundred and eighty degree reverse of what it is now. It looks like the brass stops are on the valve to allow this. Then when the valve is open, it will be pointed in the other direction.
Re: warm weather shut down
You can set the shift, or level to a point that you want the unit to shut off, and then adjust the slope to get the supply temp you are looking for, for example lets say I lower my shift below the zero value but I still want my boiler to fire hot when not on WWSD, I would just adjust the slope UP to compensate, the boiler will not fire above its adjustable setting for space heating of 180. If you are using a setpoint temperature only, (no outdoor sensor) then the unit won't know what the outdoor temp is anyway so your best bet would be a 3rd party sensor that would break the TT at a given outdoor temperature.
I'm not sure your exact situation but perhaps a conversation with the tenants would get you farther along, maybe a couple of them are using the oven and open the window in mild weather as it overtemps the space, might not even be the boilers fault. If the windows are open in the coldest months then you can almost certainly dial the slope down a bit.
to check your setting from the home screen.
hit the 3 lines button (menu)
select "settings"
select "heating curve"
record the values shown on this screen for slope and shift (or level if it says that)
GGross
Re: warm weather shut down
I would not interrupt it at the zone valve end switch. The thermostat will still call for heat and open the valve. Even if it did not operate the burner, whenever any other zone called or there was a call for DHW, there is the chance of flow to the apartment. By interrupting the thermostat to the zone valve with the outdoor thermostat, you will have a closed zone valve when ever the temperature is above the WWSD temperature you select. There is a 3°F differential on the control so you may need to select 66° or 67° so you always provide heat below 65°F outdoor temperature.
Re: Is this a staple up hack job?
@srandall , reading your post from 10:13 this sounds like a recipe for disaster. Things that begin badly usually end badly. Before he does any more work you need to have a frank discussion with this guy. As in, he needs to stop and give you a quote. No more work until you come to agreement on pricing.
If he really is just installing blind I'd be very worried, the odds of ending up with a satisfactory system that way are low.
Here are some back-of-the-envelope calculations you can do. First, if you have a heating history, follow the procedure in this article to estimate your overall heating load:
The thing about heated floors is the output is entirely determined by the floor temperature. The rule of thumb is that you get two BTU's per hour per square foot for every degree of difference between the floor and the room. So if the floor is at 90F and the room is at 70F that's 20 degrees of difference so you get 40 BTU/hr per square foot. Floors don't usually run hotter than 90F because they start getting uncomfortable underfoot, it's probably safe to assume a floor temperature of 85F, so 30 BTU/hr/sf.
If you follow the steps in the article you'll get a total house heating load in BTU/hr. The first sanity check is to take that number and divide by 30, that's how many square feet of heated floor you need. Compare that to the actual house layout and see if that's even achievable.
The tricky part of the design is whether a surface temperature of 85F is consistently achievable. This is where some of the workmanship issues that you've noticed come in. Gaps in the plates, plates not tight to the floor, plates spaced too far, all of that is going to lead to cooler spot in the floor. And you can't make up for the cooler spots by having other spots hotter, you still need to walk on this floor. If you have plenty of square footage you can get away with cold spots, but if you're tight this is going to cause problems.
Re: Is this a staple up hack job?
type A pex can be heated to remove kinks what type heat pex do you have?
What about floor coverings? Hard surfaces are best for radiant
hot_rod
Re: Is this a staple up hack job?
The fact that he didn’t even quote a price, let alone write a contract, is a huge red flag! You need to stop him from doing anything more until you have a contract, a load calculation, a design and layout, and a performance guarantee that the system will sufficiently heat the house. You should also confirm that he’s licensed and insured.
Ironman
Re: warm weather shut down
Perhaps a analogue outdoor temperature sensor like this, in series with the thermostat.
https://www.supplyhouse.com/Johnson-Controls-A19AAB-4C-Fluid-Cutout-Temperature-Control-30-110F This would act as a WWSD for each apartment.
This one is less expensive. https://www.supplyhouse.com/Johnson-Controls-A19ABC-24C-Single-Stage-Temperature-Control-w-8-Capillary-SPDTYou can also look into adding an alarm system that has sensors on each window. I have scene where the sensors are connected to the security alarm in the event of an unauthorized entry. That output can be also be sent to a time delay circuit that will open a set of contacts if the windows are left open for more that 20 minutes. This then disables the heat to any apartment that has open windows regardless of outdoor temperature.
Re: Is it time to replace my outdoor oil tank? (Urgent)
I would use a priority relay if using overhead lines. The alternative is to use a separate overhead oil line to each appliance and a common return. That is what I would do. and eliminate the priority relay
Re: Hot Water Tank Failing Again
OK, I'm back to report on what I found and wrap up discussion. I don't like to leave these open ended.
I had the debris analyzes using energy dispersive analysis by a pal at work and it turned to be what I thought it was way back in April when this started.
Drum roll……! The sediment or debris is just iron oxide or rust. I think we all know what this means for my HW tank. And, although it was nice seeing the Mars Fontana corrosion book, it looks like i don't need to study aqueous corrosion for this issue.
No iron in the system unless my water softener is spewing iron, which is not likely.
Some lessons here, I think.
- The powered anode just didn't protect the tank, so stick with standard anode, preferably Mg and monitor/flush tank periodically. Of course, it's possible, the tank is defective, but I'm doubtful.
- Water softeners over-soften water, I've got it toned down so that my water has 4 grains of hardness. I may bypass the softener and see if there are any complaints, if not, I'll turn it off.
- Although I've gotten efficient at replacing HW tanks at this point and will replace this one before it leaks, I'd rather do other things than replace HW tanks.
- I will keep the whole house sediment and charcoal filters that I have.
Comments, as always, appreciated.
Mike
Re: Did Bradford White discontinue the Combicor?
I do think B-W will still make these for you. However the market dried up w the popularity and rebates w/ the HE combi wall hung.
kcopp