Makeup water and a hot water coil.

ChrisJ

My understanding is makeup water is always pulled from a cold water line.  Why not the boilers internal hot water coil or a water heater instead? 

Wouldn't running the ice cold water through even the boiler's own internal hot water coil help soften the blow?

Greg Maxwell

Make up water

It wouldnt matter in that case because the water still would have to be heated by the boiler one way or the other.

Charlie from wmass

We have done this with

manual feeds for customers who had cracked previous boilers with cold fills. Automatic feeders are not rated for hot water.

crash2009

Water feed

I don't know if its right or not but the guy who re-piped mine installed my water feed line in the return.  Way on the other side of the hartford.  I suppose I could crack the boiler if I tried hard enough, but I would have to really go out of my way to do it.



Yea, I insulated all that crap too.  What a pain.

ChrisJ

black foam pipe insulation

Crash, did you use fiberglass or the black foam insulation on your condensate lines?



I would assume the black / gray foam would be perfectly safe on any pipes that always contain water?

crash2009

Black foam

works ok on a domestic hot water 120 F.  It would just melt on the condensate return 180-210 F.  Use fiberglass on steam/condensate lines.  My boiler and hot water heater are in a small room.  Without insulation that room was very hot. 



You might need some heat in the basement.  Dont do the returns till last.