Is this considered bullheading a tee?

newtonkid88

Please take a look at the return lines to the boiler. Which drawing would be best regarding the 2 zones' return piping tees?
According to the people who installed my boiler, zone control, expansion tank, and zone sentry valve, only 1 zone can be active at a time, when I asked about the indirect HWH and baseboard heat.
There is currently 1 heating zone. I want to add a 2nd heating zone as shown in the drawing.

Jamie Hall

There will be a little more head loss in the upper diagram as compared with the lower -- but in a pumped system it's trivial.

EBEBRATT-Ed

In the first picture only the 1" tee between the manifolds is bull headed.

What @Jamie Hall said

hot_rod

I’d avoid the bull head if possible.
But I’m more concerned about the pump/ expansion tank relationship😗

newtonkid88

hot_rod said:

I’d avoid the bull head if possible.
But I’m more concerned about the pump/ expansion tank relationship😗

That’s how the oil company installed the pump and expansion tank 😕. Should the expansion tank and the boiler be sucked on by the pump? I’ll draw another picture tomorrow night

GroundUp

The first drawing is bullheaded and should be avoided, if possible. The rest of the piping is also questionable- two Spirovents? XT before Spirovent AND upside down? Circulator pumping toward XT? I mean, it'll work, but it's pretty shoddy.

newtonkid88

GroundUp said:

The first drawing is bullheaded and should be avoided, if possible. The rest of the piping is also questionable- two Spirovents? XT before Spirovent AND upside down? Circulator pumping toward XT? I mean, it'll work, but it's pretty shoddy.

Yup. I called the oil company to replace an old boiler. That’s how they plumbed it.

To be fair, they were tying everything in to an existing monoflo loop. I dont know if that forced them to do it like that.

GGross

newtonkid88 said:

hot_rod said:

I’d avoid the bull head if possible.
But I’m more concerned about the pump/ expansion tank relationship😗

That’s how the oil company installed the pump and expansion tank 😕. Should the expansion tank and the boiler be sucked on by the pump? I’ll draw another picture tomorrow night

Yes, in Dan's book "Sucking on Boilers" which you can buy in th.......

I'm sorry your explanation just made me laugh out loud, but yes that's the general idea, you will hear it referred to here as "Pumping Away"

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

I'd pipe it something like this:

newtonkid88

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes said:

I'd pipe it something like this:/>

Thank you. I really don't want to touch the existing piping too much. If the only downside to my piping is that I'll have to bleed the radiators once a year, I'm okay with it.

hot_rod

If you have trouble getting, or keeping the air and air noise out of the system, it would be worth correcting the piping. It might be easiest to just move the tank connection to the inlet side of the circulator.

GroundUp

It just baffles me that oil companies are installing boilers out there. That's unheard of in my neck of the woods, but then again so is oil heat in general. The gas companies certainly don't do anything other than gas.

Bob Harper

1" FNPT Malleable Iron Wye would be preferrable to tees.

newtonkid88

GroundUp said:

It just baffles me that oil companies are installing boilers out there. That's unheard of in my neck of the woods, but then again so is oil heat in general. The gas companies certainly don't do anything other than gas.

I’m in a city in MA that is usually very strict. The installers only required an inspection from the fire dept. 

This company is actually an energy company. I only called them an oil company because i also needed an oil tank and they did that too.

hot_rod

Bob Harper said:

1" FNPT Malleable Iron Wye would be preferrable to tees.

Nibco has some good options. A double ell is a good fitting. 1 X 3/4 X 3/4 only

HomerJSmith

I think your drawings would benefit from using a ECM pump. Why two air eliminators? Maybe you should consider the placement of the ExTank.