Best Of
Re: Installing wifi-smart thermostat with 2-3 wires hydronic heat-only
You need to reverse the Red and White wires
The red wire is on Tw. and the white wire is on TR. This makes no difference when there is only 2 wires. But it makes a difference when you have 3 wires and one of them is common.
Look close at the red and white wires on the zone 6 label. The left is for the White to W on the thermostat. The right one TR must be connected to R.
Re: My pressure gauge is between 20 to 25 right at the marker. Is that too high!
You have no need to turn off the power supply or close any valves. Just connect a hose, open the valve slowly and watch the pressure gauge. Take you three minutes (or less) to bring it down to 18 psi.
However, it's already off from last night. Just leave it off and bring the pressure down with the hose and the valve.
BTW, what is the pressure this morning with the boiler dead cold? It might be down below 18 psi already. If so, lower it to 15 psi.
LRCCBJ
Re: Oil Boiler Water Marks on Side of Unit Behind Paneling, Cast Iron
@HVACNUT @Steamhead i have no idea if it’s needed, was put in before me. Yes, will have a heat loss done.
dmalk118
Re: The "equalizer" is mis-named. It does nothing to equalize anything.
And when you finish the first page of that application @ethicalpaul, page 2 needs
Social Security number
current address
previous address for the last 25 years
names of all you children
Your mother's madden name
at least 5 of your most used passwords (especially your debit card PIN)
annual income
marital status
and your dog's name.
Re: The "equalizer" is mis-named. It does nothing to equalize anything.
Perhaps that's where the name equalizer comes from.
It equalizes the negative pressure when the pipe breaks so it "vents" the loop and stops it from siphoning from the boiler. It never had anything to do with equalizing positive pressure when the system is intact and never actually does anything to a properly functioning system.
I've brought that up a few times, but didn't think the name had anything to do with it until now.
ChrisJ
Re: New Boiler Overfilling After Warm Weather
I have seen a steam boiler not fire because of overfill, more than once.
The water pressure would shut the pressuretrol off. Drain down and it fires up.
If your auto fill valve or manual by pass valve is seeping water by, you would overfill.
But that would give you constant overfill, even while heating.
JUGHNE
Re: Packing Heat
@Larry Weingarten : "Yup, 80%! If you could get anywhere near that number, any flavor of solar works and is easier to accomplish."
I agree very much with the general sentiment. I'll add that a well-insulated house is just more pleasant: more comfortable, quieter and less dusty. I like to say that an ounce of insulation is worth a pound of hydronics when it comes to comfort.
But I have to disagree with the statement that "any flavor of solar works." There are lots and lots of failed attempts at passive solar and heat storage out there, what Joe Lstiburek calls "mass and glass." Sometimes they work, a lot of times they don't, and when they do work it's mostly because of the conditions at the site, particularly the climate.
Installing one of these systems isn't like putting a deck on a house, where you just have to follow some basic guidelines and it's going to work, and the design involves mostly deciding whether you like deep and narrow better than wide and shallow, or whether a square works best for how you see yourself using it. I'd say it's more like building a hydro-electric generator on your property. Before you even begin, you have to ask, do you have water flow? How much? And how much does it drop? And do you have the right to build on it? Because if you don't have those things, there's no way to make up for the lack.
This is what's behind the questions I asked three posts ago. Without knowing specifics of the energy use in this house, in this climate, it's impossible to do any of the calculations that would tell if some sort of heat storage would make sense at all.
