All roughed in and ready to solder. Any advice or suggestions??

styxplo

I’m finally ready to melt some solder. How’s it look. Everything seem ok. I have to add one more circulator for a lower temp zone, but I think everything else is in order

STEVEusaPA

Paint the plywood.

hot_rod

where are you connecting the expansion tank into the system?

The 3 way valves need to see the return from the zone, and tie into the return loop, here is the tekmar drawing and an example.

The cool return blends with the hot supply to mix the outlet temperature.

Intplm.

The workmanship looks good.
You should remove gaskets on the circulator flanges before you start soldering to help prevent damaging the flanges.

The male adapters should also be removed and soldered onto the copper tubing seperate from there current pictured installation,

Have you done any soldering before?
A wet rag to wipe joints, bucket with water in it, lead free 1lb. roll of solder with a name brand flux ready on hand.
Fire extinguisher near by?

Low flame torch tip?

It looks good so far.
I hope you can post some pictures after you are done

lchmb

I'm confused by the indirect? what is directing the water into/out of it Im thinking you would need a circ on your primary loop above the indirect..

styxplo

Hot_rod. The expansion tank is in the first picture. It is plumbed into the bottom of the Discal air seperator on the hot supply side between the boiler and buffer tank...

As far as the mixing valves.... I have that all messed up, but I see it now. Thanks for the catch!!

Intplm I’ve done a little soldering. Nothing this big though!!!! Thanks for the tips!! I was up in the air about the male adapters. If you see in the pictures kept a few of the pipes out that go into make adapters. How do you know how far they are going to thread in to be able to get the right pipe length.

Lchmb

It’s not an indirect. I’m using it as a buffer tank plumbed in the 2 pipe way. The boiler is a combi for my hot water. The boiler also has an internal pump. Do you think I still need a primary circulator??


Thanks Msrk

mattmia2

there is sort of a rule of thumb length that the male thread will thread in to the fitting based on pipe diameter but there is almost always enough play to make up the 1/4" or so difference if you thread it hand tight and cut the copper for that then make it up after. usually making it a little long works out better than short.

Wellness

Is there flux already in those fittings? Or are you taking it apart to apply later?

JUGHNE

Flame shield to protect the plywood.
How big of a tip are you using?

styxplo

mattmia2. Ok So I should be good hand tightening then adding maybe 1/4” to the length. It’s all either 1” or 3/4” pipe

Wellness... I didn’t add flux yet.....Speaking of flux intplm mentioned a name brand flux. What brand do you guys recommend??

styxplo

JUGHNE. in the past I used a propane torch. I bought a MAP gas benzomatic torch. I didn’t even realize there were differnt sizes. Any recommendations??? I also bought a piece of the fabric to hang behind where I’m soldering..

Larry Weingarten

Hello @styxplo , With copper, you'll get twenty ways of doing it from ten plumbers, but I like to keep a spray bottle with water in it, to pre-wet areas that could get scorched. My flux of choice is C- Flux and I use a turbo torch with mapp gas for this size copper. Always use the wet rag to wipe down the finished work or it can turn green later on.

Yours, Larry

Intplm.

styxplo said:

Hot_rod. The expansion tank is in the first picture. It is plumbed into the bottom of the Discal air seperator on the hot supply side between the boiler and buffer tank...



As far as the mixing valves.... I have that all messed up, but I see it now. Thanks for the catch!!



Intplm I’ve done a little soldering. Nothing this big though!!!! Thanks for the tips!! I was up in the air about the male adapters. If you see in the pictures kept a few of the pipes out that go into make adapters. How do you know how far they are going to thread in to be able to get the right pipe length.



Lchmb



It’s not an indirect. I’m using it as a buffer tank plumbed in the 2 pipe way. The boiler is a combi for my hot water. The boiler also has an internal pump. Do you think I still need a primary circulator??





Thanks Msrk

"How do you know how far they will thread in?" You don't, exactly.
What you can do is cut a few twelve inch length of copper tubing.
Solder the adapters on the ends, then cut and fit them.
You should allow for more room or length before the adapters and the next soldered fitting. What you have pictured is much to close. To close because after you apply teflon tape to the threads and then install the adapters, the next "to close" joint you solder will burn the teflon tape off the adapters threads causing a leak. So, try to be at least six inches away from the threaded joint. Then solder the next joint in line

mattmia2

You can wrap a wet rag around the threaded fitting where you need to sweat a joint near an already made up threaded fitting to protect the dope or tape from the heat.

I used a lot of threaded valves and other parts where the parts were expensive and i was concerned about making a bad joint and having to re-make it and burning up a $100 zone valve or balancing valve or microbubble air scrubber. I could sweat on male adapters then thread it in to the expensive part with no worry of destroying something if i needed to re-work it. The cost of the adapters was cheap insurance.

hot_rod

Consider moving the expansion tank connection. That boiler has an internal circulator. IF it is pumping into the boiler then it is also pumping at the PONPC. You could easily move the connection into that plug on top of the DirtMag, which is on the return and then you would be "pumping away"

GW

Looks nice. I have humbly deemed myself an above average soldering guy, hit me of you have specific questions. Q- you are going to solder those male adapters out in the open right? Some guys will solder those in place (I would if i had to), but you end up frying the tape-dope a little bit. edit- same with those circ flanges, I would not solder those in pace, do all that on the floor/bench whatever.

clammy

I once meet a mech who would not solder his male adp out of place nor would be put Teflon on he would clean the threads apply acid paste and solder the male adp into whatever threaded fitting he could ,spriovent , prv or backflow . Of course this guy was just a piper and never did service not one bit , doubt he ever tried to change out a prv combo unit that he soldered male adapter into . I straight out told him that he would never work for me and if he did I would fire him first time I saw such stupidness his reply was that he never has leaks on male adapters . He wasn’t alone cause he said he learned this trick from his older brother who I always knew was evil in the way he did things and usually most of his piping jobs where near impossible to service no less repair any type of leaks . They both work for a large company now and I can only image the evil doing there doing being there always low bidder who neglect to install common things like isolation valves,strainer nor any thing that would be service friendly in the future and lower normal service . Usually if I have a bunch of threaded stuff all close I’ll just use steel or brass nipples not a big fan of a bunch of male adp all over the place . Peace and good luck clammy

lchmb

looking at the way it's piped now, the boiler will pull water out of the indirect only. The zone circulators will recirc on heat zones only. Their is nothing to inject the water from the indirect into your closely spaced tee's. At least as far as my brain is thinking. Guess you'll be the first to know..:)

EdTheHeaterMan

Edit

hot_rod

why not a simple 2 pipe buffer? You have the ideal tank for it.

As piped, it is a secondary and would need a circulator and some additional control logic telling it when to enable and disable.

lchmb

I'm with Hot Rod on this one. Much easier over all. much easier to understand down the road and less money up front.

styxplo

Larry. I ordered some of the c-flux. Thanks for that. I used the Oatey in the past and it’s way to thick to brush on...

Now that I have some idea of how to solder the male adapters in and space everything I think I can cone up with a plan so I don’t burn out all the tape and dope...

Hot_rod. I’m going to have to check out the direction the internal boiler pump “pumps” It won’t be hard to change it to the dirtmag. When you say pumping into the boiler. That would be from the return out of the supply?? I just want to make sure I get it right.

Ichmb and hot_rod. I’m having a hard time “seeing” it. I thought what I have was the “simple 2 pipe buffer”.

styxplo

Ichmb. Ooo man. I thought I did have it the simple way. Lol that’s what I was going for!!! I sure am glad I posted everything. I appreciate all this help guys!!

GroundUp

It took me awhile to figure out what you had going on there, but it appears to me you have the 2 pipe buffer properly piped as-is if you shut the valve on your Webstone purge tee and all circs have IFC to prevent ghost flow. I would surely move the expansion tank connection to the lower pipe on the inlet/return side of the boiler, but I don't see why the load piping wouldn't work as it is.

EXCEPT for the cold side piping to your mixing valves should come from the respective zone it's being used in, not from the main as you have it. Like the far right zone for example, if it is calling at the same time as the next one to the left (which I assume is high temp), the tee in the main that you currently have set up to serve the cold side of the mixer will only be getting return water from the high temp zone and not be able to temper properly. The return from "zone 1" can be the only line that feeds the cold side of the mixer for "zone 1".

styxplo

Does any one have an example drawing of the 2 pipe buffer setup using pumps for zoning??? I can only find drawings with zone valves. Originally I was going to use zone valves but when I priced out the zone valve and balancing valve for each zone it’s was more then $90 more expensive then using individual zone pumps per zone... I’m starting to second guess myself and I have lots of time and money wrapped up in this.

Ground up..... I think I understand why you are saying that I would have to close the webstone purge tee to make this work. I’ve been thinking of this as a primary secondary system and based on feedback from hot_rod and Lchmb its isn’t supposed to be.

Lchmb. I’m kinda wrapping my brain around what ur saying.. that I’m not going to be “injecting” any heat into my secondary loop. I basically have my buffer tank boiler loop. And then my zone loops,but no heat transfer between the 2.

hot_rod

Closing the valve I think would put the tank in series with the boiler
So every heat call the buffer flows they an un fired boiler, not the best use. You can pipe the 2 pipe with circulator or valves or any combination
Two large headers1-1/2 and tee branches off that header.

GroundUp

The tank is already in series with the boiler. Without an injection circ, secondary circ, and switching to close tees for the loads I don't see it working any other way than closing off the purge valve. Boiler runs the buffer on the primary loop, loads pull from the buffer or the boiler with the existing piping depending what's calling. No? Seems to be identical to the drawing you posted unless I'm missing something

hot_rod

Maybe i'm not seeing all the components. I think this bottom drawing is how it is currently piped? If so the buffer is just stranded from the distribution, as a load of a secondary P/S it would need a circulator to move energy out of the tank.

The boiler needs to be able to go directly to the load, when under design condition.
The tank needs to be able to supply the load without the boiler circuit running, in the buffer discharge mode.
The ability for both flow to the distribution, and a % to the tank under low load, that is where the hydraulic separation function needs to be included.

You could close the valve between the P/S connections but you do not have the hydraulic separation that the large piping at the tank provides, shown in the upper drawing. it looks like that loop is only 1" maybe 1-1/4"

That tank piping (headers), needs to be 1-1/2 or 2"to allow the various flows to interact, think of it as a hydraulic sep split in two, S & R. Hydraulic seps work with a 3-1 ratio. Whatever size pipes into it, the barrel needs to be about 3 times that diameter. That gives you very low pressure drop and allows flows to not interfere with one another.

Same applies to primary secondary piping, the main "run" needs to be able to accommodate the total flows, even allowing two direction flow in that space between the tees.

styxplo

The drawing cleared it up. Good news is....I get it.💡💡💡 Bad news is I have to redo the header and most of the piping. I’m going to use 1-1/2” for the common headers (I already have some) with 1-1/2”x1-1/2”x3/4” tees to feed the supply and return for each zone circ. The tees will be as close as I can get them to each other... with the mindset of keeping the common header length as short as possible. Is there a minimum and maximum guidline for the spacing of the tees within the common header. Thanks again Mark.

lchmb

I would take the 4 way valve out that ties your supply and return together. Put a 90 on your zone supply and return and drop them to the tee's off your storage tank. nice and simple.

styxplo

Ok. The short pipe and tees coming off my storage tank are already 1-1/2” x 1” x 1”.
If this way will work it would be way less work time and money to make happen. My only hang up is that the headers are the common piping and if I’m thinking right will only be 1” this way. Not the 3 times larger that was recomended for proper hydraulic separation.

hot_rod

styxplo said:

Ok. The short pipe and tees coming off my storage tank are already 1-1/2” x 1” x 1”.

If this way will work it would be way less work time and money to make happen. My only hang up is that the headers are the common piping and if I’m thinking right will only be 1” this way. Not the 3 times larger that was recomended for proper hydraulic separation.

I think that will work. Ideally that 1-1/2 nipple would be as short as possible. Size is related the total gpm that has to move around the merge point. Like to see near zero head loss in the short connection into the tank, under 2 fps for sure.

Not unlike primary secondary closely spaced tees, closer the better.

Be sure all the circulators have checks also to prevent un -wanted flow. You should be go to go.

styxplo

New and Improved

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

That check valve on the buffer return........does it have a teflon washer? If it has a brass washer, it can chatter and drive you nuts.

I am now always using Caleffi check valves that have plastic trim.

SuperTech

I'm not crazy about the sidewards expansion tank, but I like your choice of Caleffi components.

styxplo

Alan. I’m pretty sure it is brass.

Super tech. Yeah I was hesitant, I’ve read about some negatives with it being mounted sideways, it was the only place I could find enough room. My sump pump crock is in the other corner so I couldn’t mount it there. 10 lbs in a 5 lb sac!!!

GroundUp

Much better, that looks great. Expansion tank on its side is of no concern if it's properly charged and supported. Where will you be connecting it to the system? I don't see a tee in the return line to the boiler anywhere yet.

hot_rod

Amtrol does allow horizontal mounting, according to their Engineering Guidebook.

I see Zilmet installation sheets showing the tank in any position??, both DHW and hydronic.

But they also show pumping at the PONPC!

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

I once had a customer that questioned the horizontal mounting of an x-tank we installed because the instructions showed a vertical mounting. He called Amtrol and they said that installers often use the piping to support the tanks and that's why they showed them in the vertical position. If you mount the tank horizontally without support, it will shear off, especially if it ever gets waterlogged.

It's uncanny how much a waterlogged x-tank weighs!

With a tank properly supported with a bracket or strap, they can be mounted in any position.

styxplo

I mounted the tank with a bracket that came with straps. Shouldn’t really be any weight on the plumbing....I was going to connect it in at the top of the dirt mag separator which is the return “ cold” line of the boiler. I think this is the no pressure change side. I’m going to solder it up on my next days off. Then for the controls!!! Thanks again everybody. Mark

hot_rod

styxplo said:

I mounted the tank with a bracket that came with straps. Shouldn’t really be any weight on the plumbing....I was going to connect it in at the top of the dirt mag separator which is the return “ cold” line of the boiler. I think this is the no pressure change side. I’m going to solder it up on my next days off. Then for the controls!!! Thanks again everybody. Mark

Should be plenty adequate.