Triangle Tube Trimax multiple temps?

adambuild

Hi Wallies,

Can someone please explain? Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the new Trimax control can deliver multiple temps of hot water. I'd assume that would be without a mixing valve, otherwise what's the point of making that claim?! I currently have an application where the homeowner will have one floor of radiant and two other floors of copper fin tube baseboard. How would the different temps be controlled?

Thanks in advance, Adam

Harvey Ramer

The Trimax

can produce multiple temps for multiple zones. It can not produce multiple temps simultaneously. The boiler will revert to the highest temp that is being called for.



Harvey  

adambuild

?

Thanks Harvey,

Pardon my ignorance, but what's so great about that? Isn't that a misleading claim?

Adam

Harvey Ramer

No, It's

not a misleading claim. It does exactly what the book says it does. Look at it this way, It's a control option and can be used in many different situations but obviously not in all of them.



You have to figure out what will work the best for your situation and run with it.



Harvey 

Jean-David Beyer

The boiler will revert to the highest temp that is being called for.

Yikes! My W-M Ultra 3 has three thermostat inputs that are arranged in priority order. Usually, the highest priority thermostat calling for heat is elected, it uses the reset curve for the zone controlled by that thermostat, and the circulators for that zone are activated.



I have my indirect hot water heater hooked up to the highest priority input, and that runs the highest temperature and runs only the circulator from the boiler to the indirect. The boiler circulator and the circularors for the other two zones are off. And that is good, since they require lower temperatures.



The radiant slab zone is the middle priority zone, and if it wins the priority contest,  the reset curve with the lowest temperatures is put into effect, and only the boiler circulator and the circulator for the radiant slab is run. (Usually).



The baseboard zone is the lowest priority zone and if it wins the priority contest, the reset curve with an intermediate temperature is put into effect and only the boiler circulator and the circulator to the baseboard zone run.



I said "Usually" above because if the baseboard zone calls for heat, its circulator runs. But if it does not win the priority contest, the boiler will be running a different reset curve, either the indirect or the radiant slab. If the indirect is running, nothing really happens because the boiler circulator is off, but if the boiler circulator is running it is because the radiant slab won the priority contest. In this case, the baseboard also gets hot water, but only at the temperature the radiant slab wants. So the baseboard gets some heat, but not enough. Thus no zone gets hotter water than it wants, but the baseboard can get warm water that is not as hot as it wants. The other night, when it was 12F lower than design temperature, though, the baseboard was getting some 120F water and with 14 feet of baseboard in each of those rooms, that was quite a lot. They would have slipped down in temperature after a while, but the boiler controller does not let the other zones hog the boiler, so I never actually lost any temperature up there.



The controller in the boiler is clever enough that no zone can hog the boiler. So if the radiant zone wants to heat for four hours straight, the baseboard can snatch 20 minutes from time to time, and this is enough. All the times are programmable. And for a house that needs only a tiny amount of heat in the baseboard zone, this works just fine. Ideally, I would put even more baseboard up there and be able to run it at the same temperature as the radiant zone, but I already have 14 feet in each of the two rooms and that is really enough.

SWEI

Simultaneous delivery of two different water temperatures

requires a mixing valve for the lower temperature zone(s.)  Viessmann can do this with the onboard controls.  Lochinvar has an add-on box (which will actually run three valves.)  A Taco iSeries-R valve will get the job done for most of the rest.