Looking for four-way valve

bklynfrank

My friend buried alot of pex in his floor and having problems moving the heat through it.

After reading <a href="http://www.heatinghelp.com/article/11/Hot-Tech-Tips/243/Square-Pipes">http://www.heatinghelp.com/article/11/Hot-Tech-Tips/243/Square-Pipes</a> I figure we do the four-way valve method.  Anyone can point me in the direction of an online vendor that sells these four way valves?  



Thanks much

Frank

heatboy

When you say..........

........ "buried alot of PEX",what exactly is a lot?  One loop, hundreds of feet?  There is a circulator for every situation!

CMadatMe

4-Way

Generally the only time we use a 4-way is if we are looking for boiler protection. If your having flow problems then the post above is the right question.

bklynfrank

4 loops

of 1/2" pex @ 300ft each. 

CMadatMe

300 Feet

Is that to and from the manifold or what is just in the floor. Is this 100 percent water or do we have anti-freeze mixed in? What pump are you using? How about some pics of the boiler piping

bklynfrank

Its camera shy at the moment.

This is at a hunting cabin and I'm not there to take pictures at the moment.

I have a TK-3 Takagi, currently a taco 009, and 5 honeywell flow valves for zoning.It has a 50% glycol mix.

I have the takagi @ 140f because we dont have a mixing valve piped in yet to lower the temp from the baseboards.

This is not our primary method of heating, we have wood burning stove and fireplace.  The idea was to bring up the temperture to bearable before we kick in the wood.

The baseboards are working well but the floor needs help.

CMadatMe

Head

 According to my Wirsbo head loss calculator and I don't know the heat loss so I ran it at 1 gpm flow rate. 00 Pump curves attached.

1gpm flow rate

1/2" Pex

300' loop

140 degree water

50 glycol

Head = 13.5 feet



I'm thinking 0012 or 0014

Ironman

Takagi Tankless

The tankless will add a lot more head beside the loops. It should be piped primary/secondary with a separate circ for the tankless.

CMadatMe

Pictures

Iron is right on. That's why the pics or atleast a piping schematic would be nice to see.

NRT_Rob

do you

have any way to balance flow?



baseboard will hog whatever flow you can get way easier than the radiant loops will.

bklynfrank

they are zoned seperately

the baseboards are zoned seperately from the radiant.

So right now, we have them on an either-or.  Either the baseboard gets flow or the radiant.

From what I read in http://www.heatinghelp.com/article/11/Hot-Tech-Tips/243/Square-Pipes it seems a very similar situation.

Mark Eatherton

I've used a 4 way this way numerous times...

In one case, the tube was 1,000 foot long. !/2". I kid you not.



It made his shop a lot better, but it will never be right.



THe other time I used it was on a big long snowmelt driveway, 500' long loops of 5/8" (intentionally) and it too worked like a champ, but it was really strange hearing the mod con boilers shifting gears as the hot fluid starts coming back past the boiler, and eventually cooler water hits and it shifts gears again.



If your heat source is capable of handling the loads of both, I would set the two systems to operate simultaneously. Either - or is not an option in delivering comfort unless it has to do with DHW production, then it's OK.



If you need high temp for the BBR, then you will have to set a separate pump and mixing valve to handle the radiant load.



And then there was the plumber who piped the cast iron radiators in series. All 12 of them...



You can't make this stuff up.



ME

bklynfrank

can you point me

in the direction of a online vendor that sells the 4way valve?

No DHW on this.

Thanks for your help

NRT_Rob

actually

some new mod/cons like the new ultras are coming with multiple priority settings. goes a little like this:



1. DHW priority over all else as normal.

2. High temp priority over low temp. However, you run it fixed (or very high reset) and it should account for less than 1/3rd of your total load.

3. Low temp last priority.



boiler will switch between the 3 loads as necessary. I am skeptical about the efficacy of this... but perhaps with a slightly high reset curve on the low temp, and mass floors or something....

Mark Eatherton

Not sure where you can find it, but

http://www.danfoss.com/North_America/BusinessAreas/Heating/Products/Group/HE/ESBE-Mixing-Valves/ESBE-Motorized-Valves/bf7467cb-5558-495b-94fc-9206cf342a80.html



Do you know how to plumb it?



Patriotsupply.com can probably get one for you if you are not a contractor.



ME

Jean-David Beyer

Ultra 3's are like this.

I got my Ultra 3 in May, 2009, and its controller is as you descrbed. I infer you are suggesting running one a bit different from how I run mine.



Mine is like this:



Priority     Temperatures    Load

1              170F                DHW-indirect

2                75-120F          Radiant slab, downstairs; about 22,500 BTU/hr

3              110-135F          Baseboard, upstairs; about 6,500 BTU/hr.



2 and 3 have outdoor reset, but the temperature curves are different.

The controller will operate 3 circulators, and I need 4, so I have a relay box to operate the upstairs baseboard circulator. The controller is set to run circulators as follow:



1.) DHW circulator only; DHW is across the primary (boiler) circuit. The heaing zones are in the secondary (load) circuit.

2.) Boiler circulator and downstairs circulator

3.) Boiler circulator (and upstairs circulator).



The only unusual thing is that there is no mixer valve. If running at priority 2, the reset curve for downstairs applies and is fed to the radiant slab. If the upstairs thermostat calls for heat at the same time, its circulator runs, but it gets a lower temperature water than it might prefer (using downstairs reset curve), but it gets some. After a timeout (30 minutes), priority 3 thermostat takes over for a shorter time and its reset curve applies. But the circulator for the slab is turned off. Eventually, that times out, and priority 2 resumes. This only works because the upstairs zone requires very little heat and recovers pretty quickly, so the downstairs zone does not miss these small interruptions. In practice, they do not switch back and forth much because upstairs satisfies its thermostat pretty quickly (I have a lot of baseboard so that these lower temperatures are enough). If the upstairs load were much greater, I am not sure this would work all that well, and I would probably need just one reset curve, but a mixer valve to lower the temperature to the slab zone. I would be sorry to do that, though. OTOH, I would hate to have to explain how this setup works to a techie who is in a hurry and does not have time to understand it.



I am not sure just what you are proposing. We agree that the indirect DHW should be top priority and probably run off the boiler circuit. I am not clear if you are proposing to run the two other priorities on one zone, but with two different reset curves or what. I do not see that that would be any better than just adjusting for a different reset curve. Can you be more clear what you have in mine?

NRT_Rob

if you're replying to me

then I have nothing in mind, I was just trying to explain this multiple priority operation, which you have done far better than I, thanks for posting.

NRT_Rob

whups.

double post.

Jean-David Beyer

Yes; I was replying to you.

I was wondering if you had a scheme in mind to get greater modulation range, and did not see how it would work. You said you did not have anything particular in mind; just a case of my jumping to conclusions. I do that a lot.



That U-control on the Ultra 3s is quite an interesting device. There are a few changes I would make in it if it were up to me. The PID part of the controller runs too fast, so it tends to overshoot, so I would diddle that a little. Probably wise of them to not have that customer-adjustable, or even installer-adjustable, because not too many people seem to understand feedback control systems, which that is. And I wish it would control 4 circulators. But the way I run mine is probably not typical. I supply different temperatures to two zones, using one priority for each zone. Due to the way the thermostats are wired up, the high temperature zone can run at the same time as the low temperature zone, but at the low temperature. If the high temperature zone had more heat demand than it does, this would not work, and I would have had to use a temperature control valve to mix the low temperature zone down, and that would probably interfere with the efficiency of the system.



These things are really interesting. Setting the reset curves is tricky. I tried to set it by looking at the heat loss of the building, and it was barely satisfactory. I wish I could control the outside temperature for a bit to do this experimentally, but of course, I cannot. So it took almost the whole heating season last year to get these settings right. It does not get cold enough often enough to do it quickly. ;-)

oldpipefitter

4 way

ESBE makes them ( www.esbe.se ) Paxton sells them. (http://www.paxtoncorp.com/valves.php)



Installed some , years back. Was not impressed. Always felt there was better ways to do the job.  Don't get me wrong, ESBE makes good products, Paxton a great supplier. Just thought the applications weren't right. designed and spec'd by an engineer. I just installed.

tim smith

Re: 4 way or 3 way may be better

I have used Esbe 4 ways many times, good brass valve, sweat available. Use Esbe motors. They work well.  May be easier and cheaper if you do a 3 way I valve from Taco. Has built in reset. Good luck