Hydro Air in Oakland

Alan(OnVacationInOregon)Forbes

Most of the Hydro Air I see in the Bay Area is commercial; very few residential installs.

I looked at a job this morning up in the Oakland hills; the owner had purchased the house last summer and has now turned on the heating system. In order to get heat to a zone, he has to turn on a switch next to the thermostat which turns on the blower and then turn up the thermostat. You can see the inconvenience of this system; the fan stays on all the time and does not turn off when the thermostat is satisfied.

See next frame...

Alan(OnVacationInOregon)Forbes

Honeywell

The thermostat powers a Honeywell zone valve open-closed; it's a three wire zone valve. I'm thinking power open, power closed.

Does anyone know if this zone valve has an end switch that I could use to power the fan? I think that would solve the problem.

Bill W.; are you out there? Are these zone valves still around? Do you know the model number?

Best wishes,

Alan

Brian (Tankless) Wood

I'm willing to bet

you could operate a 24v relay from the call-for-heat wire on the zone valve, to turn on the air handler.

Don't give you mushroom to work, do they?

Cheers from the Swamp.

We're in that perfect time between AC & heating. All the doors & windows open. Great sleeping weather.

Floyd

I think....

that looks like one of those Honeywell proportional t-stats....
if you takethe cover off and there is a little round barrel with windings
and a needle that slides back and forth on it... that is what it is.
The valve then opens proportionally to the drop in temp..... have never seen that
in a home, but many times for commercial. Seems as though that would make
for a very drafty, cool feeling home.
And there would be no end switch on it if I can recall right.
Looks like it would be a project, but you will probably have to yank that thing and
install a new zone valve in there. Cha-ching!!!!!!


Floyd

Alan(OnVacationInOregon)Forbes

Speaking of tankless...

(Hi, Swampy), the owner of this same house has an indoor swimming pool heated by the hydronic boiler; two tankless coils off a 630,000 BTU Peerless. He says it doesn't do a proper job; the pool stays cold.

The coils are piped in parallel, 3/4" copper off a B & G series 100 circulator. I'm thinking to get rid of those tankless coils and install a properly sized heat exchanger. The boiler has enough horsepower, don't you think?

Floyd: I'll check those thermostats; it makes sense becuase those zone valves have a proportional piston.

Click on the attachment below and you can see what California living is like.

go giants

Alan(OnVacationInOregon)Forbes

The piping

at the boiler gets intense:

Brian (Tankless) Wood

Hi Sir Alan

630,000btu's!! I'd say it should heat it no problem. Did he say if it ever heated it properly. He may have a clogged coil or two. Or maybe he didn't run it long enough.

Then again, if the controls are as weird as those on the air handlers, the fix may be fairly simple, or.....

Let's know what you find.

You could sell him a couple of T-M1's just for the pool.

Take care out there.

Floyd

Some repiping....

is definitely in order.... I bet those coils are plugged right up!!!
I'd put in a little heat ex. and replace that boiler with a couple of smaller
ones and a Tekmar for staging.... no use cranking up 630,000 for just one
zone or the heat ex.
Also he will be much happier with that hydro air if you can give him some
min. 140* water temps.

I could see cleaning that mess up to look something like this.
Plus changing that old Peerless out owuld save a ton.....on this job
I changed out a 750,000 Peerless and a 300,000 Am. Std. and cut the bill
in half!!!!!
The standby loss to try to make those coils work has got to be incredible!!!

Have fun with this one!!!!!

Floyd

Alan(CaliforniaRadiant)Forbes

Looks like

you spent some time in that room, Floyd. Nice work!

What was the HX for? Looks too small for a pool.

Best wishes,

Alan



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Floyd

Thanks!

That heat ex. is actually for a snowmelt system for the side walk
of the bank this system is in.
I though that it was way too small also, and still can't believe
the amount of heat that I can get out of that thing!!!! Bet it would
heat a pretty good sized pool!
Yes alot of work went into that room, but there was a lot to do before
that work could start...... there was a huge old steam boiler in there
that had to be broken into pieces by hand with a sledge hammer and
carried out piece by piece!!!!!
Was well worth it though, when you can have great satisfiying results, and
a happy customer!!!!

Floyd

BillW@honeywell

Zone valve & stat

That was an older modulating system that was used in commercial stuff, mostly. It is no longer avaialble, but there are some good replacements, like the VC series valves & motors. Valves can be up to 1", 7.0Cv, and you can choose fron 2 position, floating, or 2-10 vdc modulating heads. A control like the T641, T921, or T6984 or T7984 could be used. These products are not available thru all Honeywell distributors, try a commercial-oriented one. If you need larger line sizes, you'll need to consider a V5011N 2 way globe valve, threaed body pattern, sizes from 1/2" to 2", and an appropriate "ML" series direct coupled actuator. Good luck!

Alan(CaliforniaRadiant)Forbes

Does anyone know

how to wire a relay into a proportional signal from a thermostat to a zone valve?

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Floyd

Don't understand...

what are you trying to accomplish?????
The prop. t-stat will be 3- wire and it varied the voltage back to the
valve... hense the prop. control.

Why not change both the t-stat and valve to match each other????

Floyd

Alan(CaliforniaRadiant)Forbes

Floyd

Thanks for your input. Maybe that's what I'll have to do, but I was hoping to find a way to leave the t-stat and zone valve and either:

1) find an end switch somewhere, or
2) add a relay

so that the fan is not always on. I'm drawing blanks from everyone, so I guess a change-out is in order.

Thanks to everyone.

Alan

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