Boiler change out to Lochinvar Mini-fin

Bob Sweet

VERY nice Paul.

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Paul Rohrs_5

Atmospheric boiler change-out

This recently widowed lady really needed some help with her old boiler system. This little farm house sits on 9 acres and after losing her husband this summer, the place is slowly showing its age.

The boiler was out of commission when I showed up. It was a Laars copper fin boiler that slowly cycled itself to death. Over the years and remodels, the Homeowners removed CI rads and put in electric baseboard, don't ask me why. After a while, this boiler was obviously over-sized for the application and short-cycled itself to death. All the boiler feeds now is a single zone of baseboard on the main-level.

If there ever was a "Budget" job, this was it. With not much money, I found a Lochinvar Mini-fin that was properly sized (and in LP) at a really inexpensive price. The Lochinvar Mini-fin was the fore-runner of the Lochinvar Solution.

I fabbed up a nice little control panel in the shop with a tekmar 356 for the brains. It gave us boiler protection with minimum return temp, and a full-reset temp via variable-speed injection-mixing to the baseboard. I chiseled away at the gas-piping, control panel, and venting, while Matt did the near boiler piping.

We were able to finish this in one day. I truly marvel at the logistics of Ron Jr doing boiler change-outs in one day.

Regards,

PR

Edit: pic 5964 was the actual way I found this unit when I arrived.

Paul Rohrs_5

New boiler pics

Here are some of the pics of the new boiler. As a side note, this was the first time I have ever installed Grundfos circs. The Knight boilers that I buy all come with them, but usually I keep until a job can be completed with the same brand circs. (Taco) The grundfos were a breeze to wire, really nice.

(The grey 12 x 12 nema inside enclosure houses a tekmar 003 relay and a 40va transformer.)

The 1" stub outs off of the boiler loop (with ballvalves) are for a possible future indirect water heater.

Paul

[Deleted User]

Nice work Paul...

Constructive criticism's for you.

The Siggy School of Hydronics trains that there should be at least 5 pipe diameters of straight pipe before a seondary take off tee, and 7 pipe diamters of straight pipe down stream of the return tee. If not, you can expect unwanted fluid transfer between the individual circuits.

Also, can't tell by looking, but any time your distribution mains are higher than your heat source mains, it is my recommendation that a check valve be used on both the supply and return piping of the transfer loop to avoid unwated thermal migration, which can raise as much havoc with a system as inadvertent, unwanted flows from improperly placed P/S tees. Either that or some REAL deep thermosiphon loops, which can be over come at times based on cold heavy dense water.

Only other thing that hits me in the face wrong is the junction box mounted on the bottom of the pump. I don't think that is an approved location per the manufacturer. I understand that sometimes a fellas gotta do what a fellas got to do to get things done, and that there are some places the rules have to be bent just to make things work, and I suspect that was more an issue than misguided installation in this case.

Great save on your part. The customer should be glad whe found you. It would also appear that there was probably some products of combustion spilling into the conditioned space. I'm betting she's waking up more alert and refreshed than she has in a long time...

Good on you and your partner,

ME

Paul Rohrs_5

Mark

Constructive criticism noted.

I will change the system pump so that the electrical is top-mounted. Frankly, I was moving a little to quickly to get heat up and running that I overlooked that aspect.

The system is one zone of baseboard so migration wasn't my primary concern. Even with that in mind, I should have watched more closely. I should have moved the tee's for the injection mixing loop over to the suction side of the system pump rather than where I located them.

Thanks for the input.

Regards,

Paul