Best Of
Re: Seeking your thoughts regarding a boiler/system upgrade for a small 1980s ranch.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Does the present system work? Will your building inspector for the sale test it? He or she should…
If it does need a new boiler, get it sized correctly to the load. I wouldn't spend the extra to save the 5 percent or so on what a mod/con might give you.
Re: Seeking Engineer for Off-Grid Religious Facility Heating in the Mountain States
Yes, that design approach was only possible because of the mild climate. The architect said as much in the NY Times article:
"This is all possible only because Harare is 5,400 feet above sea level, has cloudlessskies, little humidity and wide temperature swings -- days as warm as 88 degreescommonly drop to 58 degrees at night.
''You couldn't do this in New York, with its fantastically hot summers and fantastically cold winters,'' Mr. Pearce said."
Obviously a termite-mound-inspired building is not going to work in the Rocky Mountain climate. I only mentioned Eastgate as an example of a building that had actual design engineering done up-front on its thermal mass, as illustrated for example by the heat exchange between the ventilation air and the concrete "teeth" in the air passages.
The point being that actual engineering analysis and design of thermal mass can be done if the client is willing to spend the money for thermal modeling, as opposed to just pouring thick slab floors or walls, calling it thermal mass, and hoping something good happens. But obviously the actual design and how best to use thermal mass is going to be influenced heavily by the local climate.
Maybe in this case, the best thermal mass is just a giant buffer tank that absorbs BTU's from the wood boiler during the day and releases those BTU's slowly overnight by circulation through slabs or radiators. Then the engineering can be as simple as calculating how many BTU's will be stored in the buffer tank, calculating the release rate of those BTU's by circulation overnight, and modeling the expected interior temperature over a range of overnight outdoor air temperatures.
jesmed1
Re: Drums of water in the basement as a buffer
IIRC, the Zomeworks house also had the water barrels set up so that a water bed could used to cover them. The bed would heat up with the barrels.
Warm bed on cold desert nights.
JUGHNE
Re: What size couple old brass
They used to make adapters to go from Brass to Copper that you could sweat. One end was made to fit over brass pipe.
I think they were only made in smaller sizes and may not be available any longer.
Re: What size couple old brass
it looks like there is a sharkbite designed for pvc that is ips but the outside might not be smooth enough for it to seal.
you could thread it but old brass tends to become brittle so it might crack if you try to do it with a die. a thread mill could probably do it but those aren't exactly portable.
mattmia2
Re: What size couple old brass
the sharkbite is copper pipe size, not ips right? you can measure the od. megapress will fot ips.
here are the sizes:
if it is 3/4" ips the od should be about 1.05". there were also some local brass pipe standards, i think the most common one was used mostly in Boston.
mattmia2
Re: What size couple old brass
a 7/8 acr fitting would probably slip over it and yo could sweat it.
edit:
er, maybe not, i was thinking 3/4 hard copper. ips is going to be a bigger od. you could probably swedge something to fit with the right tools
mattmia2
Re: System 2000, nearly double the cost of Weil McLain, is it worth it?
Here's a brief tutorial on primary/secondary from heating expert @Ron Beck :
Whichever boiler you ultimately choose will come with piping instructions. Some give you options like primary/secondary, or piping the usual way but adding a bypass that gives the hot supply water a "shortcut" to return straight to the boiler, thereby boosting the return temperature.
I will mention that we have two Weil McLain cast iron boilers that were NOT piped according to the instructions (the bypass was omitted) and have been running for 30 years with low return water temps (below 130 F) with no apparent ill effects. So while I am not advocating ignoring the installation instructions, I am saying that, in some cases, low return water temperatures are not necessarily fatal.
Just make sure your installer pipes the boiler according to one of the approved methods in the instructions, and you'll be fine.
jesmed1
Re: HTP UFTC-140W Recurring Error Code 11 Issue
Had a similar problem with a UFT-80, a few years ago.
Error code 11, replaced ignitor, replaced flame sensor. Checked combustion again. No luck. Second trip and a call to HTP
On the UFT, the flame sensor is visual. There are two windows on the heat exchanger, one for the flame sensor and one for visual inspection. First, I switched the flame sensor to the other window which resulted in most ignitions on first try. The glass into the heat exchanger was fogged. Also checked this by shining a light directly into flame sensor.
Hope this helps. The glass is replaceable but I little bit of a job to get to it from the inside
Shane_2