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It has been a long process but the boiler is up and running. The new Weil-McClain CGa3 with indirect dhw is functioning. The system is our radiant floor heating using a Tekmar 4 way mixing valve with Actuator Motor and Tekmar 360 Controller.

The hvac fellow provided so much assistance but the setup of the 360 Controller is still a challenge. Everything is wired, a big thanks to Ed!,who helped me out with some schematics.

But I am running the 4 Way Mixing Valve manually at present as I, and the hvac fellow gave me this chore, am still trying to figure out the settings. Being a finish carpenter/ woodworker does help!

So a step at a time.

Not a crazy idea at all. Some commercial hot water baseboard contains one, two or three rows of element (pipe with fins).

Systems with plain steel compression tanks are referred to as air management systems. Meaning that the air bubble in the compression tank cannot be removed, it is the expansion space.

B&G and others devised a couple components to allow air captured in the top of the boiler sections to be placed into the tank via their Airtrol ™ components.

B&G also shows both the IAS inline air separator and the EAS enhanced air separator, a micro bubble type air separator being used instead of the Airtrol fitting into the boiler.

I believe both of these B&G products have been discontinued.

On my solar drainback tank at my last shop I piped the air vent discharge from a Discal up to the air space in the solar tank. In fig 5-10 it shows the Discal piped to the top of the tank at a cross fitting, and the siphon break air tube piped to that cross. So any air removed from the circulation, gets placed in the air bubble at the top of the tank.

I believe any microbubble type purger with a treaded vent connection could be used on a boiler system with the steel compression tank.

Any experiences with this arrangement?

Hi, @EBEBRATT-Ed mentioned gravity hot water. I built that system into my house and it works nicely. I did use finned copper in the walls, so there is nothing to see, but it wasn't so difficult and the math is waiting for us in the old books.

Yours, Larry

ps. It cost far less that scorched air. 😊

Many of the scoop type air eliminators that come across this list are not installed with 18-24" of straight pipe upstream. That lessens the efficiency of the scoop, as does over-pumping them..

I think if you install high efficiency type boilers, mod cons, then a microbubble type separator is critical.

Microbubbles against the paper thin metals used in some or the mod con designs need to be covered with water, not bubbles.

Considering the overall cost of a new boiler installation, adding a microbubble purger is a small cost adder.

It's not AI, I've posted in the group before. Yes I edited the post because I didn't want to come off grandiose saying a bunch of boiler techs still exist. The Main Wall is describe as being a place for general discussions. Don't think too deeply on this post it is simply just to "shoot the breeze" and discuss with people who actually discuss heating systems.

most new houses have very poorly installed hvac systems as well as all the other mechanical systems and terrible drywall installs and finish carpentry…

Or it could be converted to propane.

I have often thought about this and what kind of system I would install, but its more like a dream.

I have lived in houses with steam (first 3 houses growing up), oil fired+ my grandfather's house (coal fired), 1 with warm air (awful), and my own house for 33 years with BB hot water (monoflow). Electric heat now😖.

New England used to be over 80% oil fired so my first years working almost everything I worked on was probably 70-80% oil fired steam, some oil fired warm air and oil fired hot water. By contrast the company I was working for also had an office in Hartford which seemed to have a mix of steam, HW and warm air and the first gravity hot water system I ever saw.

Often thought about the "Iron Fireman" mini tube copper system like @gerry gill has used. I worked on one of those systems (also in Hartford) a larger system in a church.

I was very happy with my monoflow system for 33 years it was fine (except when having to bleed it 😔) Seldom ever had to do anything to it except replace the circ., expansion tank and PRV. It was a millivolt system.

I think I would go with the mini tube just to have something to fiddle with.

My HW system didn't break often enough😊