hw heater also heating the house

Al Letellier

Joe, you're right about wear and tear on that heater. When a water heater is used strictly for radiant, it becomes a closed system and you don't keep adding fresh water every cycle. Take domestic off of it and you will severely shorten it's life. Have personnaly replaced several,less than three years old, installed by another contractor trying to save a few bucks. A water heater is a water heater and a boiler is a boiler!!!!
Also, a lot of plumbing codes today prohibit this kind of installation. Maine requires separation of domestic and heating water.

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james barnett

hot water heater taking on two roles?

I renovate and build homes here in Seattle, and was interested in a system by Bio Radiant that went into a big housing project out here. There they used a single home depot type hw heater to heat the drinking water and provide hydronic radiant and convection heat to the house. I liked the simplicity of it, but yesterday found out, by reading Dan Holohan's book, that there's a problem with legionaire's disease if the self timed circulator pumps ever stopped their daily duty. I researched the CombiCor, by Bradford White, and like it, but they aren't sold in Washington State. Are they any other options I'm missing here? I'm going after cheap, simple, energy efficient heating for rental units, that will pass local code and not sicken or kill anyone.

Wayco Wayne

Put a heat exchanger

between the potable water and the heating water and life is good. I put in a Voyager on a job years ago that had a built in heat exchanger. Had some problems with it though. I'm not sure if they have been ironed out. The Combicore has had some problems too. Hot rod has gone to grat lengths to research them and has pictures. Danfoss has soem zone control panels that have heat exchangers that you could slap on the wall and pipe to very easily to save time if it is a large project. We have some condos in the next toen that are set up to do both heat and water. The only problem is when the water heater breaks there is no heat.

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John Felciano

Your

fears of open combination systems are not without merrit.Open radiant systems are the perfect breeding ground for Legionella bacteria.

If a single water heater is going to be used for both I would use a flat plate heat exchanger on the radiant side of the system.I would also pipe it with monoflow tee's to insure the heat exchanger remains flushed.Timers are great,but like anything electrical it's doomed to fail,and possibly without anyones knowlage when it does.

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Joe_13

I understand the cost savings.

But don't you go through hot water heaters every few years since the heat/DHW load keeps the burner on so often. I would be more concerned of the water heater letting go and flooding a basement.

heatboy

I am using water heaters ...............

more and more for certain projects. Yes, even me (that's for you hr!). Most of the homes around here are heated by furnaces, so this is the only logical way of getting radiant into these homes. Very few are willing to part with the $15K to $20K it would take to retrofit a boiler. It's only common sense to split your potable and heating waters. It does require upsizing the water heater to 75 MBH, but that's usually a benefit also since standard off the shelf water heaters are woefully inadequate for most houses they end up in anyway. The picture is how I accomplish this.

hb

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Joe_13

What kind of a boiler retrofit

costs 15-20K??? I assume that includes the radiant install also. How big are these six zones you're feeding off one HWH?

Wayco Wayne

HB

Tell me a little about the control on the upper right. I can see a Danfoss sticker. Is the control Danfoss?? Is it outdoor re-set? Is this constant circulation?? Do you cycle the primary side circ to control temperature? Looks great. WW

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