What's wrong with this picture....

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

I baseload with a small boiler, then bring on a big boiler when the temperatures really drop. The baseload boiler is sized to the typical winter day heating load and the big one picks up the rest. For churches using setback most of the time in most spaces and in apartments/ condos where internal gains are very high per sq. ft. it usually works out to 1/3 baseload, 2/3 big boy. Also, I don't use a high efficiency condensor for the 2nd stage, it is just not cost efffective. Why spend big bucks for a high efficinecy unit that will only run about 5 to 10 % of the heating season. I never did the numbers, but I would expect there is a negative payback to making the second stage a condensor, since the fuel savings are so small due to the unit almost never running and the cost of money for each year you pay interest or don't collect income on it.

Boilerpro

Mark Eatherton

Mismatch??

Nah, supplier "issues"...

Not a new concept by any means, just a new twist on applications :-)

Questions?

ME

Mark Eatherton

What's wrong with THIS picture....

As Dan has said, and I will echo to my grave, "The urge to oversize is stronger than the urge to have sex..."

New twist on an old saying, "The urge to control circulator operation with variable speed operation, is stronger than the urge to oversize!!"

It sits on it's haunches and purrs... Not a dis-satisfied customer in the house (condo).

The big red pump is now a back up, just in case.

Questions?

ME

Mark Custis

What's

They would bust me in Ohio for the gas lines. Not protected.

Big unit snow melt, little unit house?

Vacation or occuppied?

What is the real question?

Mark Eatherton

What protection would you have provided?

It passed inspection from one of THE most stringent inspection agencies (Denver) in the area.

It serves a condominium loaded with persnickity residents.

When I bid the job, it had a 1.5 mill atmospheric boiler in place.

My loss calcs called for 750K of 92% efficient appliance. I was told by a supplier when I bid it "No problem" on the availability....

When I placed the order, I was told there was a 4 to 6 week wait. Wanting to strike while the iron was hot, I chose to bite the bullet, and place a 200K and a 500K. The 500 K does DHW through the heat exchanger and 240 gallons of storage. THe 200K is programmed (non cascaded) to be the lead boiler, and the 500 K is programmed about 20 degrees F behind the 200K.

The 200 K boiler carries the majority of the load.

Ideally, I would cascade the two boilers together, and have the little boiler be the leader. Once its capacity is exhausted, the 500K would come on line at 200 K, and the 200 K would go on vacation. When the 500 K boilers capacity is exhausted, the 200 K would be blended in on the tail end of the capacity of the 500 K, resulting in 700 K worth of capacity.

Only problem is, the software that comes with the boiler doesn't work that way (yet). One of the interesting things about Lochinvar, is that every time we make a suggestion to the factory, the next boiler we see has those changes implemented. Great company to work with.

Now, I know how hard it is to implement a system wide software change, but I would almost bet dollars to donuts that the next version of the software that drives these beauties will have that as an option :-)

ME

Mark Custis

Just wait

Mark Custis

Just wait

I feel your pain. It has been a while since I typed here and you are one of the GREAT names I remember.

Dan of course is included.

Mark I am going to tell you what if.

Take the load projection and cut it in half. Sell them solar to do the 50% and retire the big guy. Pay back can be gained by learning RETscreen, and by back the big guy.

Caleffie or Veismon will supply the liability.

I know your ability and I am sure you have gotten better in the time I have been gone.

In Ohio track pipe, must be protected. We do not want the mop bucket to dent or perf the stainless. Think non-metalic, (romex) vs EMT.

Oh I did learn radiant, geothermal and solar while I was gone.

Mark

Charlie from wmass

In Mass we would need to run iron to the ceiling and anchor the pipe to the structure. I have decided that unless I am backed into a corner I will not use CSST but guess I will be the last one buying iron at the supply house. Codes vary we all know as it seems you need a passport and a translator to go from state to state in the trade. Your logic works well for the cards you were dealt but why not go with two boilers closer in size?

Mark Eatherton

Thanks Mark...

and Welcome back.

We do solar as well, but were extremely limited for space on this job.

ME

Timco

Yo Mark...

How's that cool (warm) glass thing going? I am still amazed...

Tim

Mark Eatherton

It's an experiment Charlie....

These modcons LOVE working up hill, against a load. Hence, the little boiler is the primary work horse, and when it gets real cold outside, the trojan horse kicks in to augment the little guy.

I too hate the looks of CSST, but from the speed stand point, it can't be beat.

Gawd, listen to me, I'm starting to sound like my old man... I remember when plastic DWV first came out, and he came home all stressed out saying "All you need to do plumbing today is a ruler, a saw and a can of glue!" Shortly thereafter, he too was elbow deep in ABS cement...

Adapt, change and overcome, or get run over by the guys that do... I feel your pain. And a few more than I had last week :-)

ME

Mark Custis

Welcome back

Thanks.

Mark Eatherton

Slowly but surely TIm...

We're still waiting for an angel to come along with a bucket full of money to ge our final R&D done so we can kick production into mass production gear, but in the mean time, we're doing limited production to get proof of the pudding where the rubber meets the road.

I put four of them in my small cabin in the mountains. My brother and I went up there this weekend. Bear in mind that the cabin is a summer fishing cabin, and has virtually no insulation ANY WHERE.

Shortly after we fired up the windows, it's felt like you are standing in the sun, even though the ambient was hovering around 30 degrees F. In fact, my brother spent the night on the couch in the living room with the windows, and when we woke up the next morning, he said "Do I look sunburned?" He didn't really, but he said he felt like he was. They are AWESOME, and we've begun doing our research on its use with solar cells and batteries.

Thanks for asking.

ME

Charlie from wmass

Mark I just do not see the CSST as being that much faster, in open basement piping by the time I get done putting all the hangers and guards in place. I also do not see the cost drop for the job just move numbers to material column from the labor column.

Charlie from wmass

one note about the plastic pipe is that it is better than copper for DWV, if it is better I embrace it.

Mark Custis

TAX CREDIT

Check out dsireusa.org,. Click CO and the Feds. Print copies and feed them to your sales staff instead of bagles.

LOL

Unknown

I did ,,,

a similar install in a 6 unit condo building a few years back but just because I wanted to. The town wanted me to match the load of the radiators but the heatloss came out to less than half that. So I took a small Crown scotch marine that was 1/3 the radiator load and another twice as big and cascaded them together. The small one does the work down to *40 ODT then it switches to the big one from 40* down to 0* at which time the small kicks back in to assist the big one. Cut their fuel usage by about 35%.

jp_2

I would do it different

since you are doing this as an 'experiment', I run the boiler differently.

once the 200 hits low modulation of the 500, switch over, then once the 500 is in mid range fire the 200 and run them together.

from the data I have seen from manufacturers, the lower end of mod/cons run in the highest efficiency ranges. waiting til they top out wouldn't be the best efficiency as shown in the graph below.

this type of control could be driven off the outdoor reset curve, which apparently is more of a straight line from what i have seen.

Mark Eatherton

Manufacturers would LOVE your theory of operation....

Bigger is better, on low speed...

The mantra of most contractors is still the same. If a little one does a little good, then a bigger one would do a lot of good. Hence, your wishes might just be fulfilled because the oversized boiler would spend most of its time on its haunches.

The trick is going to be convincing the manufacturers to follow your line of thinking as it pertains to boiler scheduling, control and operation. I will be glad to pass your thought to my fav manufacturer.

ME

Mark Hunt_6

Mark

Could you provide me with the info on the big pump and with the settings you ended up using on the Stratos please?

Any idea on the power consumption of the big pump?

Looks like a Binford 2000 job!

Thanks!

Mark H

jp_2

mark,

so what you are telling me is the manufacturers data is false?


that vitodens chart is wrong?

why would they lie?

of course you have some data to prove this?

not sure where I stated to OVERSIZE a boiler?

so you are telling me efficiency is the same all across the board during constant fire?

Mark Eatherton

jp, I didn't say that.

In fact I didn't even imply that.

You didn't STATE that the boilers should be oversized. I took that out of context that the boiler is more thermally efficient on the lower end, which makes perfect sense. A perfectly proportionally controlled combustion process, with little to no excess air, and a large heat exchanger surface area equates to high thermal efficiency on the bottom end.

Why are you so argumentative with me? It's like your soul function in life is to prove me wrong. I must have done something to offend you, and for that, what ever it was, I apologize.

Not interested in arguing with you any more.

ME

Mark Eatherton

Mark..

We couldn't see the piping distribution system in this building, other than what comes into and goes out of the mech rm. There were 8 wall mounted FCU's serving the buildings common stair ways. We went through and choked the flow to the FCU's. They were originally flowing at full bore. I would have preferred to install non electric TRV's, but the budget wouldn't handle it.

We roughly calculated the pressure drop though the distribution system at 5'/100' of pipe, and added to that the Lawn Guyland method of baseboard emitters. We then chose a pump with the ability to maintain a 20 degree delta T at design condition on the knee of the curve based on the heat loss that we estimated. We fine tuned the pump setting based on the lowest bypass potential of the zone valves, which was a problem prior to our showing up.

The pump is set for DPV, maintaining 18 feet of head.

The other pump had a 5 horse motor on it. Bear in mind that the original designer was letting the FCU's free flow and was cycling their fan with a line voltage thermostat. Had we left the FCU's "as is" , we too would have needed a mongo circulator. A person HAS to look at the SYSTEM as a whole in order to provide a full and proper assessment. One has to get outside of the boiler room.

ME