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Direct Piping
This photo is from an Eichler home in the Bay Area. You can see one manifold under the boiler and there's at least one other manifold in a closet inside the house.
The installer is using the boiler pump as the system pump when the manufacturer's instructions say to pipe the system with two pumps and a primary-secondary piping layout; either with a low-loss header or closely spaced tees.
I'll be going to the job next week to find out how the system has been working, but my guess is that it works fine. Some Eichler's have 3/8" tubing and you have to use a bigger pump to overcome the pressure drop, but the one manifold look to have at least ½" loops.
But, however tempting, common practice is to uncouple boiler and system.
The company that installed this boiler sold out to a larger plumbing company. When the owner called to have it serviced, they said they don't have anyone trained to do that work.
Re: Replacing cast iron radiator with smaller one
@amaiale, Can you post a floor plan for your new kitchen cabinets in including the radiator location. In an earlier live I worked for a lumber company that sold kitchen cabinets and was involved in designing kitchen cabinet layouts. With this experience I was able to save one of my heating system customers the cost of replacing a washer and dryer set with a stackable appliance or apartment combo unit in the utility room. The existing boiler was in that room and when they wanted to replace the Oil Heat with Gas Heat, I was able to redesign the small room by moving the heater location from one side of the room to the other side. This left room on the opposite wall for a washer, a dryer, and narrow laundry tub. Something the wife always wanted was a laundry tub, but it would not fit with the oil burner on that wall.
If I could look at the floor plan of the new Kitchen cabinets, I might see something that the cabinet design folks do not see, regarding how the radiator can be incorporated into the design.
Re: COP & sizing question
@Jamie Hall : "The Mitsubishi @DCContrarian mentioned is a good cold climate heat pump , and should only cost about twice as much to run as a modern oil or gas boiler or furnace."
Your bias is showing.
As fate would have it, I just finished an analysis of that particular heat pump vs oil for someone in Massachusetts, the difference was $5.09 a year, in favor of oil. You can read it here:
If you add the cost of annual cleaning of an oil burner the heat pump is cheaper.
I think the point is that people are sold heat pumps with the claim they'll save lots of money. In New England that's generally not true.
Re: Any new feelings about Stay Brite 8 soldering vs brazing?
Brazing flows into the fitting just like solder no difference. With brazing you can get away with no flux because the chemicals in the brazing rod take care of that. True that you can "puddle" some braze material on the outside and some people do that (I do) but its not really necessary
With brazing you don't really need to clean the pipe and fittings unless they are really oxidized although it doesn't hurt and I usually clean them for best results.
get some scrap tubing and fittings and try it and then un solder it you will see how it flows. best to practice before do a real job
Re: for sale barely used Beckett afg f3 burner, Bacharach Smoke tester, Dwyer monometer, fan timer, orbi
You had an oil furnace in your home in St Petersburg?
Re: Replacing cast iron radiator with smaller one
I feel like you're onto something with this solution though. I think this problem can be solved with more cats
amaiale
Re: J-channel mounting block suitable for Prier C-134 series
Thank you all for the advice! I found a suitable sized utility block. Before and after photos …
Re: Replacing cast iron radiator with smaller one
A lot of this is lost on me as a non-heating-professional, but the basics are: it is not a super-simple feat to just replace this radiator with something smaller unless the room is way too hot, which it isn't. I've consulted with our cabinet designer and we made a modification to the cabinet design that will allow us to keep the cabinets (and thus radiator) where they are. If we want to switch to radiant floor heat at some point, I will be back for more specifics. and maybe a physics lesson.
amaiale
Re: Any new feelings about Stay Brite 8 soldering vs brazing?
if you are good at controlling the heat you can fill gaps with soft solder too. it gets more liquid as it gets hotter so if you go for just melting it is less fluid and will fill a bigger gap. look at how they do bodywork with lead or wipe lead pipe.
mattmia2
Re: Any new feelings about Stay Brite 8 soldering vs brazing?
That is the difference between Stay Brite #8 and regular Stay Brite and 95/5. and Silver Brite
I haven't looked this up recently so I could be off but 95/5 was always hard to work with because the temp it melts at (going up) and the temp it freezes at (going down) is the same temp you get no mushy middle ground so very difficult to fill gaps . I always avoided 95/5.
Silver Brite is different it melts and freezes at different temps so you can fill gaps.
I believe that the difference between regular Stay Brite & #8 is for the same reason and that #8 is easier to work with.