Need some help and advice on this.........(hb)

heatboy

I have a call in to the supply house that supposedly did the design for this home. We'll see. The manifold with the most issues is all the way on the other side of the home, some 75' away and is plumbed in 3/4" hePEX. Judging by the number of loops and square footage, the loops are at least 250' long. A 007 just won't do it. The thermostat for the master suite is, naturally, in the master bedroom while the master bath is the room with 3 sides exposed. You can guess what happens, even if the master bedroom does satisfy the thermostat. Cold bathroom. Once I shrink up the Delta T, We can look at sub-zoning the bath from the bedroom. Issue here is, the home is built on a slab, so wireless thermostats and telestats (Wirsbo Genius) is the only viable option. Before any major repipe is done, I will swap out the pump to see how much this helps the current problem with temp drops.

Warm Regards,

heatboy

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heatboy

Doesn't perform very well.

I just picked this radiant client up Sunday morning when he called with some cold spots in his home. There are a myriad of issues. 40° drops across the radiant manifolds, can't fill the master tub, etc. Aside from just changing the pumps to shrink the Delta Ts, would you just cut all of this out or try surgery. Money is not the object here, but I don't want to pee all of his money for minimal gains. I could use some direction here. Thanks.

Warm Regards,

heatboy

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Steve Ebels

Heat Boy

> I just picked this radiant client up Sunday

> morning when he called with some cold spots in

> his home. There are a myriad of issues. 40°

> drops across the radiant manifolds, can't fill

> the master tub, etc. Aside from just changing

> the pumps to shrink the Delta Ts, would you just

> cut all of this out or try surgery. Money is not

> the object here, but I don't want to pee all of

> his money for minimal gains. I could use some

> direction here. Thanks.

>

> Warm

> Regards,

>

> heatboy

>

> climatecadvanced.com

> "Expert in Silent Warmth"™

>

> _A

> HREF="http://www.heatinghelp.com/getListed.cfm?id=

> 103&Step=30"_To Learn More About This Contractor,

> Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A

> Contractor"_/A_

Alan(CaliforniaRadiant)Forbes

The indirect

is probably a separate problem (water heater is too small, not on priority, etc.).

Heating is another issue; boiler piping looks OK as long as the pipe size is fine. Looks like 1 zone rads and/or indirect and 2 zones radiant. Yeah, that temperature drop is pretty high. Would you install larger pumps to reduce the delta T's?

Best wishes,

Alan

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Steve Ebels

Heat Boy

After looking at the pics I know what I would do. I think you know in your own mind what is best for the system and the customer's comfort.

BTW How'd you make out with the place that wouldn't come up to heat?

Duncan_2

Fix the problem first.

I think I'd establish that the floor problems CAN be fixed before I did a rebuild. Pump replacement isn't that big a deal.

What I'm getting at is: The 40° delta tee across the radiant manifolds could be a lot of things related to flow. One possibility is crimped tubing.

If you gutted and rebuilt the system and still DIDN'T get the floors warm, that'd be a big oops!

But you know, it's really hard to tell what's going on from here! Pretty bizarre "primary/secondary". Dueling circs? Without a diagram of the existing system, it's hard to tell if that piping is any good (but it might be) - looks like there might be some short circuiting and/or other issues too.

But I'd try to fix the floors and DHW first by pump replacement. Always try the easy thing first when troubleshooting, right? And pray it's an easy drain/fill. At least it looks like there's some isolation valves spread around the system.

GH

Cold spots

I dont see if plates were installed or if it was done right.

hot_rod

Ah, the old

bull head tee trick again. Kinda like the old russian roulette game. Which side of the tee will get all or most of the flow? Depends on which pump starts first. I've seen some really weird temperature gradiants when pumps pull opposite from a bullheaded tee that way!

The flow checks on the inlet side of the pumps (I think) could be related to your flow problems.

If it's worth doing, it worth doing right.

I understand your quandry of "where to start" Sleep on it, the right answer will come your way. Certainly he called the "right guy" or "boy"

hot rod

Gregg Jackson

you could start by.........

saying that you will correct the problems at the boiler room "assuming" that the infloor piping is ok. I would re-pipe the boiler and ge rid of the bull head. I've seen the old bull head tee screw up many hydronic and volume water heating systems. Changing to a manifold setup or pri-sec could definitely help. I would also pull those anchor like flow checks and put a nice modern spring check - after the pump. At least you could get the boiler room correct and have somewhere to begin.

Gregg

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Floyd

Hey hb.....

did ya check that black circ. pump for direction of flow.... that one has the elec. box down same as the green ones....if that hasn't been changed then the direction of flow would be wrong... can't imagine that it was changed or else he would have known enough to switch the green ones to the top!!!!!

Are the high delta t's on all loops???? did ya measure it across the loop supply and return or the boiler????

Are the loops purged right??? air might be an issue....

I would isolate the loops and pull the lever on that 1156 and see if you can blow line pressure through them.......would let you know if there is restrictions in the tubing.....and air problems....

Have FUN..... it's your turn to SHINE!!!!!

Floyd

zeb_3

Primary pump

& p/s piping appears to be out of whack. I think I'd tell homeowner repiping is the starting point. Gotta start somewhere

hot_rod

Some answers.

Thanks for the input, fellas. Here is what I have found, so far.

3 radiant zones, all on thermostatic mixing valves and 007s. 3 high temp baseboard zones via ESPs and one 007. Mega Stor 40 with 3/4" S&R piping and a 007. Specs call for 8 GPM.

The bull head T, while not correct, doesn't seem to hurt flows and doesn't change the Delta T of any zones whether one or all zones are running, at least with this piping scheme ;-)

The boiler pump, is pumping in the right direction. I guess the original guy liked junction boxes underneath. Since there is no check valve on the return to stop the bypassing of water around the boiler and back into the zone, the boiler pump must run when ever anything, even DHW, call for heat. I've got an inclination to just remove it and let the baseboard zones raise return water temps.

I agree with hr about the checks on the inlet of the pumps. No-no. They must go. I think a few 15-58s are going in here. Is Grundfos making the 26-64 with the internal check yet? Rich C., are you here?

There are some purge valves in the wrong places and need to be moved for better purging.

What do you think?

hb



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Wethead7

Near boiler piping

That is using the term piping very loosely. Every time I look at that picture I find something different wrong. The person who installed this was a design as you go type. The problem might be other places as well!!!!

I would start by cutting that mess out. Then making the boiler area piping much easier on the eyes. The current pumps might work if they could get water. But I would have
larger replacement units on hand. The problems may go away if the water does not get lost.

How about some after pictures??


Mike

ScottMP

HB

I am just starting to understand head and flow, thanks to you guys. Am I on the right track here ?

The 007 just dos'nt have enough head for this job ? When the high temp. zones call the 007 might not be able to pull thru the mixing valves and would have poor flow ?

Bullheading was never one of my favorite even with plumbing.

The indirect should be piped with one inch.

Pumping away from the flowchecks is more restirctive then pumping towards them ?

You would need to check the circuit lengths and installation method to determine if the low delta tee was from the tubing or the manifold piping ?

Scott

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hot_rod

Still think

The bullheaded arrangement should be corrected. I've done that exact thing and had some real issues with it. Had to go back and repipe. A couple of these Istec flow indicators would show you what happens when those pumps pull from one another. I could feel the difference, temperature wise, when I turned the two pumps on and off at different times.

You have two flow restrictive "devices" on the circs inlet, the 3 way and flow check. This could be messing with the l pumps, and inducing some cavatation.

I've noticed the latest Grundfos 15-58 have an increased check valve size. They punched out the pump housing and enlarged the check size. Also it has an O-ring and does not use a snap ring anymore. I'll bet speed three on the 15-58 may get you real close to where you need to be, unless you have some real long loops??

I suspect in a good day you could correct all the near boiler piping.

Of course a couple ZCP would be an award winning "fix" for this system Like the John Cougar Mellencamp sond "Little white boxes for you and me" or was that little pink houses for you and me.

I agree with Duncan, make sure you have adequate distribution to "handle" the loads, before you begin this journey.

hot rod

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