New House Heating Pics

ChrisWilliams2

If you saw my other posts I am looking at a house with a lot of radiant heat. I am very familiar with oil but not radiant. The foundation is big and I am surprised to see loops "terminating" in different places if that's the right word. Does anything in these pics stand out as odd or an obvious problem?

Sorry I didn't sort them better, the two superstars and earthlink units are part of the geothermal system.

My understanding is that the house is plumbed with one large loop and any of the individual systems can be turned on provide the heat, so they could choose between the wood, oil propane or geo but of course only the propane is running.

My plan from my other message is to simp[lify this system I would ideally just like to have the propane and geothermal though I am doubtful it will be able to work. The wood and oil I would plan to remove, along with the 3 upright oil tanks not roth but I think STB.

This isn't everything, I am still sorting through other pics.

EdTheHeaterMan

In the mid 1900's they used to convert the one on the left to oil heat or gas heat by removing the grates and building a combustion chamber (brick by brick) in the ash pit.



I believe that the multiple manifold locations are that way to keep the "PEX" tubing loops shorter. There may be additional manifolds locations throughout the home. The surface area of a 1-1/4" pipe is much less than that of nine 1/2" tubes. (9 is the number of 1/2" pipes needed to move the same amount of heated water that a 1-1/4" pipe can move). So the insulated larger pipe gets the heat to the zone losing less heat to the space between the boiler and the zone. That way, more heat is available to heat the zone.

Yours truly,
Mr.Ed


PS Looks like someone spent extra on pipe insulation. Great looking job

ChrisWilliams2

Ok that makes sense since its a one floor house and the footprint is long. I would love to end up with two systems to give some redundancy and a possibility of using two fuels but I definitely don't need as much as they have installed. It seems odd to me also that the DHW is done by 2 Rinnais as opposed to a tank type system but maybe it works out better.

hot_rod

Someone put a lot of time and energy into planning and building that system. With all those heat input devices it always becomes a complicated piping and control system. The key is to assure all the various system inputs are sized properly. If you have low temperature radiant I'd guess the GEO would be the least expensive to run, you need to compare all the fuel costs. LP or oil would be good back up or supplemental systems.
I'd guess the original installer had a heatload calculation and design. Is there any paper work left to see how the system was intend to work.

Are the tankless water heaters in different areas of the home? That is one reason to use multiple units, get them closer to where the water use is, avoid recirculation, or have capacity to fill a large fast fill tub maybe?

Start at the beginning with a heat load calculation as the home stands. Then determine what all the various components are capable of, how old, what condition, etc. The system looks to have good "bones" it needs to be simplified to your comfort level, perhaps.

The black circulator at the top of one of the pics should really be turned so the motor is horizontal.