Hydronic plumbing questions

Jeff Lawrence_25

to make your post easier to read, can you resize the photo to about 600X800? If not, can you put all the pictures as attachments and not include any in your post?

Thanks.

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Joe D.

Hydronic plumbing questions

I've been heating my house with baseboard heat since about 1988. It had central heat, which I removed. I also heat my garage, with 2 cast iron radiators, from the same hydronic system that does the house.
I've attached photos of some of the setup. I have a wood fired unit, and a standby Burnham gas fired boiler.
I fire the gas boiler when I am going to be gone for a day and am not able to ensure that my neighbor will keep the boiler fed and keep the system hot. When I do that I manually open and close valves on the manifold, to take the wood unit out of the loop, and cut in the gas unit.
I made the 8 hole manifold manifold (pictured) and had the house on 3 different zones, plus a DHW loop through a Delaval brazed plate exchanger(pictured). Initially I fed this manifold thru 1¼ lines buried underground. Plenty of volume- then. Initially, the lines from the manifold to the baseboards were all that grey polybutlyene tubing- by quest. Actually, the only 2 lines feeding the baseboards are still the grey poly.
As you can see in the manifold photo, I use a single pump to run all of this. It worked, but was a pain to balance things out (no flow gauge or nothing- just put ear up to tubing and close valve and listen to water flow!!!). It kept the house warm.
Over time, I decided I had a water leak in the 1¼" feeders, and dug them up. I had just heard about Pex, and decided that I would replace steel with plastic.
At that time, I could only come up with ¾" pex (non barrier type- I know, I know), so that is what I used, not even thinking about flow volume loss. I didn't have a clue about oxygen and corrosion back then, either.
So, I get it all put in linking the boiler with the manifolds. I was still running the 3 zones, and it became a real pain to try to supply all 3 of them (all ¾" lines) from a single ¾" line!!
Last year, I got under the house and redid things, and linked all the zones together, making one long zone- a total of about 150'. 180° water from the boiler.
I actually have no trouble heating the house. It is an old house, not sure of the insulation content, but I did have nice Rolox windows installeda few years ago, and they really helped.
I just bought a Munchkin 80m to replace the Burnham unit. I will put it down in the basement with the rest of the hydronic plumbing. I plan on using the primary/secondary method of piping the house, closely spaced tees and all.
I've been reading all the posts on this site, and everything else I can get my hands on, including a book by Mr. Seigenthaler- Modern Hydronic Heating ed.# 2.
I do have corrosion problems in the wood fired unit, having replaced the flues once- this time with thicker tubing. I've also added some chemicals to scavenge oxygen.
I plan on isolating the water circulating in the munchkin and the house from the water in the wood fired unit.
I think I can use the DeLaval exchanger to do this. You can see in the photo that it is a big, thick unit. 5" thick, 7" wide, and 24" long- with ¾" connections.
Circulate water from the Wood unit through one side, and water in the Primary circuit from the Munchkin through the other?
When the house calls for heat, I guessing the Munchkin will start the primary circulator, which should draw hot water in from the HX, and this hot water will prevent the boiler from firing, right. The secondary circulator will draw hot water out of the loop and heat the house.
I will use a controller to switch off the wood units' circulator if and when the temp of that water drops below the set temperature.
Does all of this make sense. I look forward to any input, be it questions or criticism.
I can add more photos, if need be. Joe

Weezbo

Dantes Inferno level 7

this post hurts my eyes.

basically the quest needs to have

failed system written on it

and redesigned with heat exchangers.

lashing a munchkin to it as is

would be inviting a form of living hell.

Joe D.

well.....

The post bothered me too. I thought the pic was just big on my computer. I didn't plan on the pics being so big. Don't recall seeing a box to ask me what size to make the pic.
Like I said, the quest has been in there since day one, and I'll have to crawl back under there and change all the sweat fittings to pex friendly. I have had no issues with anything due to it, so far. I did read that they had a class action suit against quest about it, though.
Weezbo, what do you mean by the rest of your reply, besides removing the quest.
Separate the two systems with a HX? That seems like the thing to do, to me.
I planned on making a primary loop with a circulator, out of the Munchkin, with close spaced "T"s, and come off of one set and go to the house baseboard, another set to DHW, and have a couple of spares for future use.
I figured that I'd plumb the primary loop directly through one half of the HX, with the wood unit through other half. I am hoping to exchange enough heat through that medium to heat the house with out having the gas burner come on.
The HX has 1½ inlets on one side, and 1" on the other. The nameplate shows a capacity of 1¼ gallons on one side, and a little more on the other. Looks like plenty of capacity to me.
I tried figuring my head loss in the baseboard circuit. I have a total of close to 84' of finned tube, and a total of 80 feet of the quest connecting it. There are about 26 total ¾" elbows. This is my one and only heating circuit.
I admit to being mathematically challenged, but I come up with a total of 216 equivalent feet of ¾ line.
From there on, I am stumped as to what pump I would require.
I have a pair of new Grundfos UP26-99 pumps, and a UP15-42, as well as a variety of other B&G 3 piece units I have collected over the years. The TEEL unit in use now is a 1P903A, which is a 30 gpm- 9' head.
This part is really what is stumping me. I can't get it through my head what pump I'll need in the secondary circuit.
And another thing. What about the primary circuit pump. If I have, for instance, 3 zones and each of them has a 5 gpm pump pulling water out of the primary loop, does the primary circulator need to be pumping 15 gpm or more?
I read something to that effect on some web post somewhere, and it makes me wonder if that is a fact.

Joe D.

my post

I typed my last post with lots of paragraphs. None of that comes through in this finished product, for some reason.

Maybe I double space it and see how this works. Such long paragraphs are hell to read......

Kevin O. Pulver

Joe, I can't ever get my posts spaced and paragraphed as I want either. Not saying it can't be done, just trying to make you feel like you're not the only one. Kevin

Weezbo

Joe *~/:) Thanks ;

my eyes get to hurting then my head hurts then i no likey looking at it anymore. what i did see ,was something that i feel would undermind your new boiler. this is not a Good type feeling its a feeling that starts bad and goes worse.

a new boiler wouldnt like the goop and gunk in a system run for 15 years or so with quest .all that would probably best be abandoned if you could lose all the quest and agressively flush the system maybe it might be alright buh for the best advise on that you would want to get a hold of the Romar Guy treating boiler water is his Forte , as it is said. let be bend your thoughts a little further though to make my case...quite often the quest delaminates what that means is the inside of the tubing and copper pipe and fittings has something that looks like pieces of muddy grey brown plastic.that stuff would be looking like a semi tire blow out with pieces of re treads all over the Highway except inside your piping.the other thing is depending where it was during the install you might beinclined to leave pieces in it unintentionally. should this type of stuff work itself free it would head for the strainer or into the heat exchangers or someplace that caught it and arrested its movement. inside spring checks and the like would be a whole LOT of head ache..sort of a living hell. it would be as if the boiler system "Owned" you .

the next thing that i saw that stuck in my eye sort to speak was a conglomeration of metals. this too can cause a bunch of varieties of "Glitches" as the guy said in Robo Cop when the metal robot made a bunch of whirring sounds and leveled the twin 50 calibers on the room of unsuspecting onlookers.... you could look at it like this that feeling is basically what i am trying to convey.

Here you are with your brand new condensing boiler hammering it into submission with a Host of mud muck lead iron copper brass plastic iron all in some various shape and integrity...this stuff it would no likey very much. and you would be very sad from it . really it would maybe start off simple buh you would begin to decsend deeper and deeper in to the inferno as new and even more wicked demons surfaced.thats why i suggested you look at it like a Failed system and start from there.


Then your tact would be to lose all the fancy looking headers and what not that exists and do everything straight from the gate. i had not seen your plate exchanger, it appears to be substantial. may i ask you does it look like it can be taken apart? or does i seem like there are no moving parts ? plate exchangers that go large can really transfer some Btu's when they arent encumbered with debris of various nature. thats why strainers are a cheap investment. not all screens are created equal is what i have determined. car wash reclamation systems have a host of filtration and the like to reclaim water. i say this as it is Relevant.

you could re zone your home and use he pex or rehau and size the baseboard where it would "roll" a bit easier for you. maybe you could jolly in two zones instead of one for example. get better heat distribution. or maybe exchange all that base board (and floor Space)for some nice radiant pannels on constant circ with trv's and extra long "Tails" on their returns for some floor warming...

those are just some ideas. there are plenty more here as you are in heating help .com *~/:)

the other thing that i was not too sure of was the exchange system and storage system for extra Btu;s gleaned from your wood boiler ... and one of the really important chunks of info is how many Btu's do you actually require . some thing about wood boilers is they tend to have the hidden ability to keep a man busy , the idea of seperating the gravity systen with a heat exchanger is really the way to go. about three months ago a guy stopped in to hash out a few minor technicalities he was having.... i cnnot find that post for you as it is gone from my saved threads and my e- mail crashed somehow and i lost it. buh you could see a pretty good attempt at it with a few modifications you could actually See what it looked like and more importantly the various contributions posted to the thread. you might be able to find it under search at the top of the page...maybe someone who posted has a link to the thread... it might be under piping arrangements for a wood boiler.

Scott, k

nice

never saw a white grundfos before.