What do you think of this system diagnosis?

Tim Lindstrom_2

We also spotted an unmarked black helicopter and and found mutilated cattle (not really). I was on a job today with Marty with Pikes Peak Winnelson who is a living breathing WetHead and is very good with hydronics. The problem at this building is the boiler runs endlessly and the owner has propane bills of about $1600.00 a month. Marty has done an excellent job of getting the boiler dialed in and all the system components look to be piped properly and working as they should. Here are some of the system parameters:

Metal building, 3400 sq.ft. R-19 walls, R-38 ceiling, 3 overhead doors, a couple of 3x7 doors and about 200 sq. ft. of windows. This is a shop for granite counter tops and is slab on grade with no floor coverings. There are 18 200' loops of 3/8" pex tubing serviced by 2 - 75' supply and return 3/4" pex lines. There is 1" foam insulation under the slab and around the perimeter. I looked at the heatloss and all things were accurate. The building heatloss came out to around 63 mbh. The boiler selected is a 126 mbh modcon and should be plenty of boiler for this building. Although there are no comfort issues, the owner has some valid concerns about the high fuel costs.

When Marty and visited the sight todaywe were specifically looking at 1. why the boiler never really got up to design temperatures and 2. where were the BTU's going. One of the conditions in this shop were never disclosed when this project was designed is a pit in the middle of the shop that contained water to cool the stone cutting saws. The pit is about 4' x 10' and is 3' deep. This is a precast concrete vault that is uninsulated and has the concrete slab poured directly on top of it. There are also several storage tanks and a filtering system that constantly recycles the water. The capacity of that system is about 1500 gallons of water. Marty shot different areas for temperature reading and the pit was about 55 degrees and the water obout a half a degree cooler. I think this is the problem and with that kind of heat sink it is robbing about 50 mbh from the boiler.

Have any of you guys seen anything like this or is this like an Elvis sighting? I'm open to any suggestions.

On another note, if you are a hydronics guy and would like live and work in beautiful Colorado Springs for one of the coolest guys in the business (ask any of the Reps that get to call on him) Marty is looking to hire more help.

Thanks for any input - Tim