To purge or Not to purge, That is the Question

EdTheHeaterMan

There are several YouTube videos that explain how to get air out of your baseboard heating loops. Some of them are very helpful. The problem is that many homeowners do not quite understand that purging only works properly on a series loop. For those with series-loop systems, that video may be all they need.

But what about the people with baseboard radiators that are connected to a one-pipe MonoFlo® Tee system? There are a lot of those systems out there, and purging seldom gets all the air out of every radiator. I have often thought that an animation would help explain this difference.

In this first animation, there is a series-loop system with no tee fittings, so the water can only flow in one direction and push the air out of the piping. There are no choices to make as to which path offers the least resistance. There is only one path.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIzhAybPsJs

This second animation uses MonoFlo® tees to direct water to the radiators. When there is air in the radiators, the force of the water purging the main pipe will clear the air from the main loop, but the tee branches do not have sufficient pressure or force to move the air from the radiators above the main loop. This can leave air trapped in the radiators.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1UFe7vMbjI

The correct way to remove that trapped air is to vent each individual radiator. That is why each radiator must have a vent to allow the air to escape from the high points of the baseboard radiator.

Let me know what you think!

I plan on adding an audio explanation later.

hot_rod

Why the expansion tank at the pump discharge?

Add a air purger in the drawings?

Can a monoflo be purged with brute force. A pump cart with a 15 gpm flow for example?

Nice work on the animations

EBEBRATT-Ed

I lived with a Monoflow for 35 years.. I had put a Spirotop vent on the main so I would just let handle the main. I would fill the system and vent each of the baseboard once. Then start the circ and let it heat a bit.

If I had too, I would vent the baseboard again. Usually it would heat after venting the baseboard the first time but sometimes you would hear air. It would either get pulled back into the main and the Spiro top would get it or I would vent the baseboards again with the circ off.

EdTheHeaterMan

Why the expansion tank at the pump discharge?

Add a air purger in the drawings?

I am so stupid sometimes. That is the way AI drew the system and I never even thought about it.

I was consentrating of getting the water in the pipe to animate and never looked at the hydronic technical side of it

Here is my finished video with commentary https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2CZdg1SNVrk

I guess I need to go back to the drawing board. Literally

hot_rod

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1902640#Comment_1902640

Teach AI about Pumping Away!

ChrisJ

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1902642#Comment_1902642

Best I can tell (and this comment may very well age poorly) but it seems like you can't teach AI.

Each time to start, it's fresh and doesn't learn. Seems like it may be setup that way intentionally.

HVACNUT

Whenever a boiler was replaced that had a mono flo system, we would pipe in a purge station for the main. Vents at the rads would get checked/replaced before pressurizing the new boiler.

hot_rod

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1902643#Comment_1902643

makes me wonder how true this is?

PC7060

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1902646#Comment_1902646

True. The AI large language models were originally trained on the data scraped from the web (including HH) but now that data is becoming contaminated with other AI generated data. Think mad cow disease.

Those vintage / old books represent fresh uncontaminated writing and knowledge they need to refine the spoken/written language models.

A friend was complaining about the loss of those old books which are being absorbed into the AI mass knowledge “like sand on the beach, untraceable to its origin”. 😥
On the bright side, it will improve the quality of generated work by all the new authors who rely on Gemini, Llama, ChatGpt and other LLM.
🙄

PC7060

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1902643#Comment_1902643

You are correct, @ChrisJ. AI “knowledge“ is a simply a weighted conglomeration of all the information that scraped off the web. Since the majority of hydronics professionals don’t understand “piping away” it’s understandable that it’s not well represented in the large language model (AI) generated solutions.

I’m sure there are specialized AI models for hydronic’s but those are behind paywalls or integrated into high-end tool sets.