My Double Munchkin Project

EricR_2

This is my 3rd Munchkin but my first double with multiple
zones and indirect.Used all Taco zone pumps with internal flow checks & Bock 119 indirect. This was an all electric apartment complex owned by Ithaka Land Trust who provides affordable housing in Colorado Springs. They try to go with the most cost effective equipment on all of their properties. My technicians had a hell of a time with routing the copper lines to all of the apartments, two story, being that the entire place is cantilevered over a parking garage and very large steel beams in the way every 20'. The system works perfectly and saves a huge amount of energy.Couldn't have done it without my excellent crew. They got great satisfaction out of this endever. Now for any constructive critisism please.(except for my spelling:)
Eric

Colin

Kudo's Eric.......

Congratulations on a very fine looking and I'm sure functioning install. Every one involved deserves a pat on the back.

Do you ever have any problems with air elimination during purging or latter suppying and returning in the top of the primary loop rather than droping out of the bottom so air can travel along the top of the pipe back to the air elimination device?

Colin

Mark Hunt

Nice looking install!!


Only thing you might want to try next time is isolation flanges instead of ball valves.

I've got a bunch of Munchies out there but no double headers.

Congratulations!!

Mark H

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ScottMP

No Critisism Here

Congratulations , nice job.

You've got a good crew, very nice work.

Scott

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Steve Ebels

Not critisism just a question

How did you account for water temp drop along your primary loop? Were the convectors/baseboard upsized in the downstream apartments? Or do you have enough flow in the primary to compensate for it? Nice looking job BTW!!

Scott22

My Munchkin Project

In the manifold picture, I noticed that you didn't isolate the 2" copper line from the channel. Have you ever used cushion clamps? Otherwise, nice job, clean joints, no wall burns.
Scott

hot_rod

Very nice

A very nice piping job. Plenty of ways to pipe these jobs. Consider a vertical loop. This allow you to put the purger at the high point in the loop and also all your take offs are on the side away from potential air pockets that sometimes exist along the top of those hortizontal runs.

Also consider the bottom piping. If you stage the boilers only part of the loop has to be heated. Works nice with condensors that are not sensitive to cold return temperatures. Saves you a primary loop pump (make sure the pump is sized to the Munchkin flow requirements

Sounds like you will save this owner tons of heating $$!

hot rod

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EricR_2

Thanks for the input

I appreciate all of your observations and suggestions and will modify my meathods on the next install.
I should have used isolation flanges, I think it makes a cleaner looking job, haven't had any air purge problems at all,took about 10 minutes per zone to fully purge, no temp. loss problems. Hot Rod, I like your ideas but I think I would have run out of space if I did a vert. loop,and I hadn't thought of the way you have it drawn in the bottom diagram and might try it in the future. I layed out the piping arrangement and was going to use copper clevis hangers and stand off clamps but allow my lead man to make modifications.
Thank you all for your input! The knowledge and experience gathered here is awesome.
Eric

EricR_2

Thanks for the input

I appreciate all of your observations and suggestions and will modify my methods on the next install.
I should have used isolation flanges, I think it makes a cleaner looking job, haven't had any air purge problems at all,took about 10 minutes per zone to fully purge, no temp. loss problems. Hot Rod, I like your ideas but I think I would have run out of space if I did a vert. loop,and I hadn't thought of the way you have it drawn in the bottom diagram and might try it in the future. I layed out the piping arrangement and was going to use copper clevis hangers and stand off clamps but allow my lead man to make modifications.
Thank you all for your input! The knowledge and experience gathered here is awesome.
Eric

Jackchips

Great job

Eric and a very classy reply.

hot_rod

Eric, check out this

system. It employs a clever buffer arrangement, and explains that bridge piping to provide equal temperature to multiple zones. I enjoy seeing jobs posted, bring some more, we all benefit

http://www.pmmag.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,2379,78589,00.html

hot rod

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jim f

wonderful work.....i also love seeing pictures of different jobs and applications.we all learn from them and different styles of piping arangements.by the way what model circulators are those on secondary loops??
jim f. milford, ct.

EricR_2

Can't seem to

access the article. Do you know what month and year so I can find it? Thanks. Also the pumps are Taco 007ZF5-IFC. See attached web brochure.

Unknown

Amazing work Eric

I like a guy who aint afraid to use copper wherever possible . Musta took a long time to assemble all those copper tees for the header and return piping . I see you put caps on all the boiler drains - is that standard practice ? With all the leaky drains we see - brand new - it seems like a good idea . Ive been trying to get our shop guy to buy ball valve drains , still waiting .

Steve M

HEY!

Did we change the boiler pumps??? Eric used ball valves on his pumps because his wholesaler doesn't carry 9,000 sets of isolation flanges. My Taco isolation flanges have frozen open after ten years. When my 007 goes to pump heaven, I'll be wishing I used ball valves. Nice job, I've seen it in person.

Mark J Strawcutter

legend ball valve drains

Recently repiped water service entrance to my house. Installed a Legend ball valve "hose bib" as a low point drain and a place to fill a bucket if the whole house is shut off. I believe it's marketed as a "water heater drain valve".

I ended up putting a cap on the outlet. When opened under pressure the initial flow comes out as a 360deg horizontal "disk" of water (nothing flowing down vertically). Gives both the wall and the person opening the valve a good soaking!

Probably wouldn't be a problem with HW boiler pressures.

Mark

hot_rod

Try the link again

http://www.pmmag.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,2379,78589,00.html

If not go to www.pmmag.com. Click on archive, go down to columns and Siggys June 2002. Pictures should load with it also.

hot rod

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hot_rod

I agree, Steve

the inexpensive, screw slot iso-valves, work OK the day you install them!! When you need them, often they won't turn or else they leak after they are shut off and on.

For a few bucks more you can get a full port ball valve, like these Jomar. Match them to the flange of your choice. Remove the handles, stash them in the boiler jacket, to make them tamper proof.

hot rod

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EricR_2

Sorry Steve

We used Taco 0010's for the boilers, 0012 for primary loop and 007's for baseboard loops and 0011 for the indirect.
Thanks to you Steve and Rampart Supply for your excellent Customer Service:-)

munchkin-man

Very nice

again it is awsome to see you guys sharing ideas and your job addvetures together. We do have several jobs out there with multiple units some up to over 1 mil BTU's. Great job. As always to all thanks for your continuing support.
See Ya!!!!!!!

molly

hose bib caps

We put caps on all of our "new style" ball valve type boiler drains to avoid an accidental opening of the valve. A lot of "mechanical rooms" around here get converted by the home owner, after we leave, into a closet. They're in there moving stuff around, bumping into things with their skis, mops, brooms, what have you. Or, if the basement is wide open, the kids are down there kicking a ball around. We do it just as a precaution.

GW

One more tip

I went to the Holohan school of Primary/Secondary. Please excuse me if I'm wrong, but isn't there supossed to be 8 pipe diameters between the sets of take-offs? One space saving tip is to run a bathch of secondaries off of the lower header.

Steve had a good question, is there much of a temperature drop at the end of the manifold?

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GW

One more tip

I went to the Holohan school of Primary/Secondary. Please excuse me if I'm wrong, but isn't there supossed to be 8 pipe diameters between the sets of take-offs? One space saving tip is to run a batch of secondaries off of the lower header, and just offset around the upper group. Then again, if you have the room, it does look sweet the way you have it.

Steve had a good question, is there much of a temperature drop at the end of the manifold?

Gary

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Mark J Strawcutter

No more than

If anything, I think it would be "no more than 8 pipe diameters between the sets of take-offs".

Mark

Mark J Strawcutter

sorry - missed use of \"set\"

As Gary pointed out in a private email, I was ignoring the word "set" - even though I carefully included it in my response :-)

My response was referring to the distance between the supply and return Ts that make up a "set" - where the closer the better.

Gary was talking about a between-sets distance - where the farther the better. I'll need to go back an re-read P/S made easy - don't remember seeing an 8 pipe diameters rule for this. Good info to know.

Thanks Gary

Mark

GW

cool

I think it's in Dan's work book, which I don't know is available in the book store... I got it at his Pri/Sec class. If it's not there, I made it up myself..:)

Gary

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