Redoing Boiler Room / Manifold Setup For House Radiant Heat System

ONUPolarBearAlum

Good Day Heating Experts and DIYers! 

Hopping you will be so kind as to lay some of your expertise on me as I am embarking on redoing my homes boiler room, especially the tangle of pipes that make up the manifolds. The reason I'm doing this is that the current setup:

1) Is a tangle of pipes since boiler models have been changed over the years. 

2)) Things like valves and some joints are starting to leak showing signs of corrosion

3) I am versed enough to sweat the copper tubing and make things much better organized to free up space and settle my OCD.

I assume some would like to know some more info about the home and setup that I’m modifying/cleaning up. The boiler that I have is a US Boiler Series 2 installed around 2017. Model is a 208I with a BTU input of 232k and output of 191k. This setup is heating a home with 5200 sq/ft of living space and the home is exceptionally well insulated. Home is located in Central Ohio, built in the 60’s and is fully insulated and made of Indiana Line Stone over stud framing.

Currently the boiler and manifolds support 5 zones, each with a thermostat that calls for heat:

1. Garage Downstairs - 58’ loop - 3/4” copper
2. Basement Living - 216’ loop - 3/4” copper
3. Dinning, Kitchen, Laundry Upstairs - 167’ loop - 1/2” copper
4. Upstairs Three Bedrooms - 160’ loop - 1/2” copper
5. Formal Dinning, Formal Living, Entry Way - 146’ loop 1/2” copper

I’m also adding two new zones today and adding a provision for a 3rd zone that is a porch turned living space that today only has a gas burning fireplace (gas eating monster)

1. Master Bath Staple Up - 100’ loop - 1/2” PEX B Oxy Bar.
2. Guest Bath Staple Up - 169’ loop - 1/2” PEX B Oxy Bar.
3. Future in floor heating Concrete PEX around 200’ loop I assume

So what I’m confused and seeking advice on:

1. On newer boiler setups I note that they have multiple circulator pumps with a primary and secondary loop, primary for the boiler and secondary for the loops. Is this how the systems are designed and built today? I know most of the resources I see are for concrete slabs so they do not have “zones” for the loops off a manifold. If it’s standard practice to build the primary secondary setup today how would I add this to my system? Do I make a short loop based on a calculation for the 1-1/4” copper that’s coming in and out of the boiler and then add a diverter valve to “feed” the secondary circulator pump and loop?
2. I’m interested in adding some metering to the zones and have admired the Bluefin type setups with the build in proportioning valves. Is this overkill on my setup? Would it be beneficial? 
3. Where and with what parts would you add in fill ports? I want to flush this system and loops as it’s only ever had water in this system and put back glycol. Today there is only a drain value on the boiler return and a water inlet/back-flow preventer from the domestic supply. 
4. I would like to locate all the new manifolds, air separators, expansion tanks, and zone valves to either chimney wall that is made of block behind the boiler or re-sheet the stud wall in backer board. Would anyone care to show any pictures of a setup that they are proud of where the supply go up into the ceiling/floor joist and come back down the same. I'm keen on leaving space for the future when I replace this existing boiler with a wall hung unit.

Thank you for reading though this and for any insights/suggestions you might offer to my 4 questions above. 

Thank you! 

Nate

Kaos

I don't think that is piped properly. It doesn't sound like a single zone there can handle the full flow you would need for a 200k boiler, there should be a bypass plus some boiler protection from the low temp water from the floor heat.

Since you are re-piping, it guess that doesn't matter much.

With hydronic the problem is there are infinite ways to plumb it up. My $0.02 is to grab a standard diagram and flow it. From there try to minimize the number of pumps, vales and controls. If you are doing low temp emitters, a primary/secondary loop is probably the best this way you can independently set the temperature of the water. It does mean extra pumps though.

I've recently re-piped my old gravity feed hot water setup. Mostly to remove the black pipe to increase head room and better balance front and back and heat between floors. Tried to keep it simple and reuse as much as I could. Definitely not the polished copper boiler room porn with a dozen pumps, but does the job and was done in a weekend (the 1" pex is the primary loop that runs out to a heat pump and continues to the 3rd floor to another manifold set+pump and an indirect).

I had the same issue as all the piping comes from the top and the manifold gauges should not be mounted upside down as they will fill with debris. My in-between solution is to flip the returns around so they point up and loop the supply side down so the gauges are the right side up. In retrospect, I should have looped all the piping down, it would have looked cleaner.

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hot_rod

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1813492#Comment_1813492

A Bumblebee!?

Kaos

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1813537#Comment_1813537

Yeah. I have a hard time throwing it out. It is noisy but uses much less power than the single speed pump it replaced and has been good for almost 10 years.

One thing to watch with those is if you use it in delta T mode and any of the sensors come unplugged, it will shut down. Exactly what you want to happen for house heat :) I no longer use it in delta T mode.

leonz

Being a novice,

You had a gravity hot water heating system, and you gutted it????????

My first comment on this rat's nest is this, you need hot water storage with a pair of black iron threaded pipe headers, one for hot water delivery with one circulator pumping away from the top of the New Horizons tank feeding the zones and the other as a common header for cooler return water back to the boiler sump.

I do not see a low water cut off switch, Where is the triple aquastat??

Adding a New Horizons 490 gallon fully insulated rectangular hot water storage tank would provide you with a larger buffer of hot water storage.

Replacing the bladder tank with a 30+ gallon steel compression tank with an Internal Air Separator and airtrol valve connected to the top tapping in the steam chest would allow you to have a simple system that has a 1/3 air 2/3 water tank to maintain the point of no pressure change and also save your knees from bleeding air out of the system as you will no longer require automatic air vents that will leak. .

JUGHNE

My BumbleBee is still humming along after about 10 years also.

ONUPolarBearAlum

Thanks for the comments!

After spending a good chunk of time starring at my rats nest of a boiler room, reading what I can find on updating a older boiler setup (not much luck on this part), and watching some of the FIA Inc. YouTube videos on Primary/Secondary loop boiler layouts. I've decided to shelf the boiler room project till Spring when I can rip the whole darn thing apart and not worry about freezing weather coming soon.

Then I can just go ahead and do a high efficiency unit at the same time and have time and right size everything.

I am curious though is 1-1/4" Primary and Secondary manifold pipe size still common? Most of the high efficiency units seem to only have 1" inlet and outlet piping? According to the Google machine flow capacity increases 75% with that extra 1/4"?

hot_rod

the pipe or tube is sized by the gpm it needs to flow 1” can easily move 8-9 gpm

So 80- 90,000 btu/hr

A heat load calc is where you want to start a successful design