Tigerloop for oil burner and oil fired water heater

rjmc48

Do I need two tigerloops for a oil burner and water heater.
I am installing a Roth 275 in basement, about 20 feet away from burner

Jamie Hall

Can't imagine why, if the piping is tight and doesn't go all over the place. In fact, while you should have an independent line from the tank to the boiler and the water heater (two feeds) with independent shutoffs at the tank, should work just fine. No Tiger Loops at all...

Labenaqui

Same here. Tiger Loops supplied with our burners are collecting dust on the workbench ..... and we're not from Missouri.

Dave Carpentier

This has my interest. We're hoping to go boiler replacement, but the backup plan is to stick with the cast iron boiler and instead get a Roth tank for this winter.
My oil would be going up 5ft to the top of the Roth, then 1/2" copper going down 4 ft, then a horizontal run of 20ft or so to the burner. The docs for the Beckett pump say max 8ft of lift for single pipe, and make sure fittings are absolutely tight.
I'd rather not spring for a 2nd copper line or a TigerLoop, since this is all likely coming out next summer.

STEVEusaPA

No vacuum leaks, proper power bleed, no Tiger Loop. It's not a lift job. Once the oil goes up, then down to the floor it's a basic siphon.
I'd put an OSV 3' above the height of the burner (max). I'd run 2 lines from the tank, one for each, with their own filter. Or one line, double filtration and OSV.
@Dave Carpentier, I think you're fine, as long as there are no vacuum leaks.
In either case, with a single line, I wouldn't put a Tiger Loop on one, and not the other-nor would I try it with a check valve.

EBEBRATT-Ed

To me it takes a vacuum to open the osv so I don't see how it can be a real siphon. If it was mine, it would have two suctions and a common return, and I see o downside to that. tight lines and no tiger loop

EdTheHeaterMan

YES YOU NEED A SEPARATE TIGER LOOP FOR EACH BURNER. Looking at the specification sheet for a tiger loop, there is a number that you must take into consideration. Maximum return flow. On the standard model that everyone uses, that number is 31.7 GPH.
If you look at the smallest pump used on a Beckett burner, A2VA-7000 series pumps have a gear set capacity of 17 GPM. Two of those pumps operating at the same time will have a flow rate of 34 GPH going IN the pumps. So unless you have a total combined nozzle usage of 2.30 GPH the return flow from 2 pumps operating at the same time will exceed the maximum return flow of the tiger loop. And you must be sure that your pump gear set capacity is not from one of the other pumps that has a greater pumping capacity.

So to be on the safe side, you should us a separate tiger loop on each burner.

Since there will be experts that will contradict me on this, I have included the specifications of the A2VA 7000 series pump gear set capacity, and the tiger loop as proof of my claim.
I was taught Oil Burners Service by some of the best in the business and have taken additional seminars over my career to keep up with the new stuff like Tiger Loops when they were introduced

Jamie Hall

@EdTheHeaterMan , if what you say is true -- that @rjmc48 must have two TigerLoops, would you be so kind as to explain why Cedric and his oil fired domestic hot water heater have worked splendidly for the last 15 plus years or so with no Tigeloops? 330 gallon tank, single filter, to two feed lines, one to the domestic hot water heater (firing at around 0.8 gph) and one to Cedric, firing at 3.3 gph or so (2.75 gph nozzle @150 psi). If what you say is true -- that he must have a separate TigerLoop for each burner, it shouldn't run at all, since it doesn't have any...

EdTheHeaterMan

Jamie Hall said:

@EdTheHeaterMan , if what you say is true -- that @rjmc48 must have two TigerLoops, would you be so kind as to explain why Cedric and his oil fired domestic hot water heater have worked splendidly for the last 15 plus years or so with no Tigeloops? 330 gallon tank, single filter, to two feed lines, one to the domestic hot water heater (firing at around 0.8 gph) and one to Cedric, firing at 3.3 gph or so (2.75 gph nozzle @150 psi). If what you say is true -- that he must have a separate TigerLoop for each burner, it shouldn't run at all, since it doesn't have any...

Maybe that would be the same reason that oil fired systems have worked for the 100 years previous to the invention of the tiger loop. I was not debating the use of tiger loops, I was answering the question asked.

rjmc48 said:

Do I need two tigerloops for a oil burner and water heater.

So I guess I assumed that the person asking the question is going to use a tiger loop and wants to know if they can get away with only one to make 2 burners operate. That is the question I answered. A possible answer is no tiger loops are necessary. But the question was not proposed that way. I gave the answer that the OP asked.

Do you find fault with the evidence that one tiger loop would not be within the specifications of the device when used to feed deaerated oil to two fuel pumps operating simultaneously?

And finally, you are putting your words into my statement. I never said MUST have two tiger loops. I said "Should", and that can be interpreted within the context of the other answers as use two or use zero, but using one for two burners would not be advised.

Respectfully submitted,
Mr. Ed

BTW, I'm not offended or put-off by your response. I like to play this way! I used to include a tiger loop on every new fuel oil system I installed. I like them.

Jamie Hall

You're right, of course, @EdTheHeaterMan . He did ask if he needed two, or could get away with one -- and I didn't answer his question. You did.

But I am led to wonder. The purpose of the Tiger Loop, unless i misunderstand it (quite possible!), is deaeration. So, clearly, if you need one at all, it must operate on the oil flow. Thus, if you have two independent lines, you need two. However... what might happen if you had one line, which split to serve two burners? Could you get away with just one on the main line? Assuming, of course, that the branches had no chance of adding more air? Suppose you have a two line system, with a manifold serving two or more burners and a return line (I'm thinking as an analogy the system used on many diesels, of a high pressure manifold with lines to independent injectors, and excess oil returned to the tank). Just on the feed line? And (again thinking of diesel engines) on the low pressure transfer line, before the high pressure pump, or after the high pressure pump but before the injector manifold? And how would all of that compare to the oil burner world, where the injection pressure is on the order of a few hundred psi at most, while a diesel intermediate pressure line will be about the same (the transfer line is usually only a few tens) but the injectors themselves put out several thousand?

One almost begins to wonder if a Tiger Loop type widget might be useful on a diesel, as one of the major headaches is in repriming one which has been allowed to run out of fuel (some aren't too bad -- but I've spent a more than a few hours, and learned new vocabulary, repriming a 500 hp John Deere...)

EBEBRATT-Ed

As far as I am concerned a Tiger Loop is a band aid and just something else to go wrong. Its purpose is to remove air. If the oil lines are tight there should be no air.

I will concede it's one application may be with an outside above ground tank with cold oil.

Other than that make the joints 100% tight and learn to cut flare and ream the tubing to make the flares perfect and a tiger loop is not needed.

Unless the burner(s) have gravity feed an oil line should feed only one burner. Any overhead line or in a lift situation each burner should have a separate line and two pipe in my opinion. Common return is ok.

EdTheHeaterMan

@Jamie Hall & @EBEBRATT-Ed, Oh how correct you both are. Selecting the proper piping size to the amount of flow thru that pipe are all part of the designing process and the craftsmanship in assembly in the construction of any project are all part of the total picture. When you have a particular problem that you wish to reduce or completely resolve on any given project, any prejudice, perceived or in fact, one might have regarding a particular device or concept, can only limit the ways that one might resolve the problem at hand. I can only think of the human being that might have rejected the concept of electricity over that of the oil lamp, simply on principal, might look foolish to the uneducated of the 21st century.

By the way, that personal computer idea is never going to catch on! A fad! It will be a thing of the past in the next century. There will be the need for 5 or maybe 6 of those monsters dedicated to government and industry by the time out grandchildren look back and laugh about it along with 78 RPM recordings.

But I could be wrong.