95% done with my heating system/boiler room design (3D CAD), critique please

ThatF_inGuyInNY

What am I missing or haven't thought of or just have not designed properly? Check valves, iso valves, etc. My goal is a robust system that will last along time and can be easily serviced.

NOTES:

-DHW pump bypasses the primary pump and boiler protection

-zone valves cover 3 upstairs bedrooms (that cant be retrofitted with radiant floor) and a sun room which may eventually get radiant. All 4 zones have cast iron radiators. This is the plan right now, but Im not ruling out just going with TRVs.

-For these zones, a portion of the existing iron piping with be tied into pex (home runs for each zone)

-Entire 1st floor to be retrofitted with 1/2" pex radiant and extruded aluminum heat transfer plates (red tubing radiant zone)

-second radiant zone (green tubing) is for a basement zone. 5/16" hepex and fast trak 0.5 with overpour (planned)

-I weighed the use of pre-built manifolds vs balance valves on a site built manifold. Ultimately, I like the larger center spacing and commonly available components going this way rather than being stuck with manifold-specific components. I have no plans to further zone each radiant manifold using ZVs or actuators. Cost for this setup is lower and its design more flexible.

-controls are not pictured, but the plan is a taco ZV expandable controller with a taco expandable switching relay to control the pumps.

-Im not convinced the hydraulic separator can take the place of a microbubble air eliminator. One may be added on the boiler supply

-the boiler in the design is a WM WGO-2 75k net. Gas is not available where I live. Room by room heat loss yielded ~70k load at 0degF with a very conservative calculation. Actual current fuel usage averages 24k-40k BTU/hr during winter months and thats with an end of life boiler and crappy distribution (iron pipe, former gravity system). This number will likely go up as I currently do not have heat in my kitchen, mudroom and upstairs bathroom, or basement but am way over-radiated in my sunroom. The house is approx 1700 sq ft with the planned basement area (built 1935, cellulose blown into ceiling, UFFI blown into walls)

-draft damper is not pictured, but would be installed in the final build

Derheatmeister

Hard to tell what is being accieved unless one walks a mile in your shoes..
1. What are the future plans/replacement of the boiler. LP Gas Condensing/Oil
2. Two temp system ?
3. Why Zone circulating on some of the Zones
4. Position of Expansion tank ?
5. What will the DHW circ be set to ?
6. Will the DHW circ take priority ?
7. Why can't the upstairs bedrooms be converted to radiant. Viega Climate panel/Rads with TRVs/Radiant walls ?
8. Open Feed valve vs Feeder
9. Not sure about the Circ on the boiler return with the modulating 3 way boiler protection,What will the circ be set to and what will control it ?

ThatF_inGuyInNY

Peakedtoosoon said:

It's great to see this kind of pre-planning, as it's easier to remedy a mistake on a 3D model, than in the field. Without focusing on specific details, you might want to consider designing the secondary loops for low supply temperatures. Radiant heating operates at supply temperatures of 95-120 F, so you may want to consider using mixing circuits, for the basement and 1st Floor loops, especially if you intend changing out that boiler out, in the near future, for a mod-con boiler, or a heat pump. This would also apply to the radiator zone pump, if you ever decide swap out the old rads, for low temperature, double panel rads. That way, you are future proofing the design for a more energy efficient heat source, if you get my meaning. It'll also enable you to use outdoor reset on each floor loop.

Yea, I need my heat right now, so I cant really tear into it. Instead, Ive spent months planning and researching this design hoping that the install is as straightforward as possible. I want this to be perfect when its done.

Theres mixers upstream of the two radiant pumps (pictured on the wall with the pumps). The high temp ZV manifold can be converted to radiant by adding another mixer to that pump.

ThatF_inGuyInNY

Derheatmeister said:

Hard to tell what is being accieved unless one walks a mile in your shoes..
1. What are the future plans/replacement of the boiler. LP Gas Condensing/Oil
2. Two temp system ?
3. Why Zone circulating on some of the Zones
4. Position of Expansion tank ?
5. What will the DHW circ be set to ?
6. Will the DHW circ take priority ?
7. Why can't the upstairs bedrooms be converted to radiant. Viega Climate panel/Rads with TRVs/Radiant walls ?
8. Open Feed valve vs Feeder
9. Not sure about the Circ on the boiler return with the modulating 3 way boiler protection,What will the circ be set to and what will control it ?

-The current boiler is a 40yr old New Yorker thats oversized and end of life. The plan is to replace it with a WGO-2. Theres no reason (that I can see) that this distribution couldnt be converted to gas in the future. NG is not available at my address. Propane obviously could be installed but its much more expensive than oil. So for now, the plan is to stick with oil.

-Its actually a 3 temp system. 180 to the radiators, 85ish (mixed) to the 1st floor radiant (wood plank subfloor, solid oak hardwood), then an additional mixer to the basement radiant which will be overpoured and likely need a bit higher than the 1st floor.

-I need to pull through the two mixers, so they each need their own pump. The high temp needs its own since its on the secondary loop. DHW needs its own unless I used a motorized 3 way valve.

-Both exp tanks are pictured (DHW and boiler). PONPC is just behind the primary loop pump.

-I wasnt planning to use a dT pump, though its an option. I was planning to just used a fixed flow rate that yields sustained 140F return temps.

-I am not pulling up the (original) wood floors, nor am I pulling down the plaster ceiling. I do mind the CI rads. I could install TRVs instead of zoning (already installed one on the current system) but I like the idea of Tstat zoning so each person can easily control the temp of their own room easily.

-the feeder is pictured (backflow preventer and PRV) on the wall with the manifolds.

-control plan is to run the DHW pump off the taco switching relay. This will also run the 3 secondary pumps. A second taco ZV controller will control the high temp pump and the ZVs. These are expandable controllers that can be arranged as master/slave. What I need to lock down is wiring the primary pump to stay off when priority DHW calls. I know it can be done, but I have not finished the diagram yet. I wanted to lock down the distribution first.

Thanks for the feedback

hot_rod

A Sep 4 could definitely serve as an excellent air sep. it has the same internals.
You have everything correct, this cleans up the piping.
The exp tank can be on either return port of the sep, save some piping.

The boiler circ serves the indirect also, so if you have a high pressure drop indirect, six accordingly

ThatF_inGuyInNY

hot_rod said:

A Sep 4 could definitely serve as an excellent air sep. it has the same internals.
You have everything correct, this cleans up the piping.
The exp tank can be on either return port of the sep, save some piping.

The boiler circ serves the indirect also, so if you have a high pressure drop indirect, six accordingly

I love the idea of losing a pump but wouldn't it just circulate around the sep in this configuration (on a DHW call)? And would it not also pull flow through the indirect with no DHW call?

ThatF_inGuyInNY

ron said:

ThatF_inGuyInNY said:

critique please....

i just like using that gif. looks pretty.

4 zones? with 4 circulators and 4 zone valves? It seems like a lot happening there with parts from the cad pics. My thought would be to use minimum parts - decide between one circulator and zone valves, or circulator for each zone (with check valve) and don't use zone valves. Don't overlook the electrical wiring that would need to happen between everything. not knowing what you're ultimate goal is, my thought would be to allocate the space and craft a manifold that would allow N circulators now to be mounted and allow for however many extra in the future for expansion. And have whatever that circulation loop / piping layout is called at the boiler that the zones then T off of and return in to - if i can find the webpage I'll link it, it was taco university of pmmag or something....

https://www.hpacmag.com/features/siegenthaler-hydronic-piping-layout/

The number of pumps is driven by the 3 water temps + DHW. 180F to the rads that cant be replaced, 80-85 to the 1st floor wood floors, some other temp for the basement zone which will be 5/16 hepex which will be overpoured. I could potentially combine the basement and upper floor radiant into a single pump/mixer with multiple zones, but I would lose the ability to adjust the temp if the different floor systems require it. Im open to feedback on that. I just dont know enough about real world applications to know if overpoured radiant output requires independent temp control from heat transfer plates on a subfloor. My feeling is that they probably would require separate temp adjustment.

The 4 ZVs are not really necessary. The rads could run TRVs. I went back and forth on this. My feeling is that I wanted to modernize the system a bit. Giving each bedroom (and the sunroom) independent digital control feels like the type of modern feature that would be a nice outcome of all of this work. I hear the Z-one ZVs are solid and last a long time. They dont cost that much more than TRVs (though I would obviously need Tstats and a zone control).

Derheatmeister

ThatF_inGuyInNY said:

Derheatmeister said:

Hard to tell what is being accieved unless one walks a mile in your shoes..
1. What are the future plans/replacement of the boiler. LP Gas Condensing/Oil
2. Two temp system ?
3. Why Zone circulating on some of the Zones
4. Position of Expansion tank ?
5. What will the DHW circ be set to ?
6. Will the DHW circ take priority ?
7. Why can't the upstairs bedrooms be converted to radiant. Viega Climate panel/Rads with TRVs/Radiant walls ?
8. Open Feed valve vs Feeder
9. Not sure about the Circ on the boiler return with the modulating 3 way boiler protection,What will the circ be set to and what will control it ?

-The current boiler is a 40yr old New Yorker thats oversized and end of life. The plan is to replace it with a WGO-2. Theres no reason (that I can see) that this distribution couldnt be converted to gas in the future. NG is not available at my address. Propane obviously could be installed but its much more expensive than oil. So for now, the plan is to stick with oil.

-Its actually a 3 temp system. 180 to the radiators, 85ish (mixed) to the 1st floor radiant (wood plank subfloor, solid oak hardwood), then an additional mixer to the basement radiant which will be overpoured and likely need a bit higher than the 1st floor.

-I need to pull through the two mixers, so they each need their own pump. The high temp needs its own since its on the secondary loop. DHW needs its own unless I used a motorized 3 way valve.

-Both exp tanks are pictured (DHW and boiler). PONPC is just behind the primary loop pump.

-I wasnt planning to use a dT pump, though its an option. I was planning to just used a fixed flow rate that yields sustained 140F return temps.

-I am not pulling up the (original) wood floors, nor am I pulling down the plaster ceiling. I do mind the CI rads. I could install TRVs instead of zoning (already installed one on the current system) but I like the idea of Tstat zoning so each person can easily control the temp of their own room easily.

-the feeder is pictured (backflow preventer and PRV) on the wall with the manifolds.

-control plan is to run the DHW pump off the taco switching relay. This will also run the 3 secondary pumps. A second taco ZV controller will control the high temp pump and the ZVs. These are expandable controllers that can be arranged as master/slave. What I need to lock down is wiring the primary pump to stay off when priority DHW calls. I know it can be done, but I have not finished the diagram yet. I wanted to lock down the distribution first.

Thanks for the feedback

Looks like you are on the right path..
Some sugestion:
1. You could remove the additional power consumption of the Indirect circ and use the boiler circ with a Zone valve.This can be controlled via the Taco switching relay..
2. Nowadays we prefer a Glycol feeder vs. a possible flood or a contamination of our system fluid.
3. I would not pipe the Feed/Expansion on the bottom of the Low loss header..Maybe hot_rod can shed some light on the "sensing ports" that are located on the sides of the Caleffi version. Is this a 1/2" NPT FIP or BSPT ?
4. I Get that you do not want to remove the original wood floors or the Plaster Ceilings..Runtal makes the UF series Panel rads or you could just add Climate panel on top of the walls approx 4 feet high and cap it with a nice Chair rail moulding which can match your wood flooring/Door mouldings?
5. The Upstairs heat/Bedrooms could be distributed on one loop on TRVs with a bypass.
Have fun with this project.