System 2000 installation questions

Joe_13

I think others will back me up but the boiler was suppose to short sycle. I thought that a DHW heater is always added to the boiler for DHW through a plate heat exchanger. If it was heat only, I guess a water heater would still be used as a buffer tank on the primary. Because it short cyles already and dumps excess heat to the buffer tank, outdoor reset doesn't make sense. It's designed for cold-start so I guess when the heat call comes in, the buffer tank loop will help stabilize return temps until the boiler comes back up to temp. It's still a stress on the boiler and I think that's why some people had early problems with cracked ceramic refractories. This boiler must post purge the heat or the small water mass will turn to steam. The energy savings comes from sending that standby loss to the tank so I wouldn't look to the sys2000 to warm your stairwell. A Tekmar 260 boiler control can do the same thing for you with outdoor reset on any boiler and Indirect
combo you choose.

Will_3

I am having someone else install a new oil boiler in my house. Converted gravity feed, cast iron radiators, large water volume, one zone.

After getting estimates, all with different boilers, I went with an installer who rec. the Energy Kinetics System 2000. It still hasn't been installed yet and after finding this forum I have some questions.

Condensation - With the expense of this system ($5000) I don't want the steel being eaten up by condensate. His installation manual doesn't show the use of a 4-way mixing valve. The diagram looks like a primary boiler loop and secondary distribution loop with a zone valve (set to 130F?) in the primary supply to keep the boiler temp up. Both circulators (not continuous) and boiler are operated by the thermostat and "System Manager". It would appear the return side of the boiler would get a bunch of cold from the large water volume in the system (Shouldn't it be min 140F?). This and the low mass boiler sounds like short cycling. I'm not sure I know enough how the control works to say if this will prevent condensation and provide good heating with a minimum of cycling. I would welcome your comments.

Outdoor reset - this is not included. Should I push for it? Can it be incorporated with the System 2000 System Manager?

Y-Strainer on the return side - should I push for one with this low mass boiler? He says there is dip tube with a drain valve on the end of it that will catch anything.

Purge - This initally appealed to me. Still does with the indirect domestic water heating during the summer. But this installation is going in the basement with exposed black piping showing under the first floor. The heat will rise and a warm basement is good. Should I turn off the purge during the heating season to help prevent condensation and improve the heating?

I hope I am not overanalyzing this. Thanks for your comments.

Will_3

I am having someone else install a new oil boiler in my house. Converted gravity feed, cast iron radiators, large water volume, one zone.

After getting estimates, all with different boilers, I went with an installer who rec. the Energy Kinetics System 2000. It still hasn't been installed yet and after finding this forum I have some questions.

Condensation - With the expense of this system ($5000) I don't want the steel being eaten up by condensate. His installation manual doesn't show the use of a 4-way mixing valve. The diagram looks like a primary boiler loop and secondary distribution loop with a zone valve (set to 130F?) in the primary supply to keep the boiler temp up. Both circulators (not continuous) and boiler are operated by the thermostat and "System Manager". It would appear the return side of the boiler would get a bunch of cold from the large water volume in the system (Shouldn't it be min 140F?). This and the low mass boiler sounds like short cycling. I'm not sure I know enough how the control works to say if this will prevent condensation and provide good heating with a minimum of cycling. I would welcome your comments.

Outdoor reset - this is not included. Should I push for it? Can it be incorporated with the System 2000 System Manager?

Y-Strainer on the return side - should I push for one with this low mass boiler? He says there is dip tube with a drain valve on the end of it that will catch anything.

Purge - This initally appealed to me. Still does with the indirect domestic water heating during the summer. But this installation is going in the basement with exposed black piping showing under the uninsulated first floor. The heat will rise and a warm basement is good. Should I turn off the purge during the heating season to help prevent condensation and improve the heating?

I hope I am not overanalyzing this. Thanks for your comments.

kevin coppinger_4

an EK-system 2K...

would be the LAST boiler I would recommend for a gravity conversion. I many years ago installed a low mass boiler steel boiler in my parents gravity converted house and even doing all the bypasses it really struggles to heat in the dead of winter. Higher mass is better for this oil application. Buderus,Smith,Burnham or if cost is no issue Viesseman. kpc

John@Reliable_4

Cast iron boiler with by-pass is the way to go with your system

J.C.A._3

Lets just sit back.....

And watch the excrement hit the air movement device now.

I'm waiting to see the replys on this. Could surpass a few other posts .

The EK backers are going to be coming out of the walls(I hope) I've done a few, and wouldn't recomend one for this case myself. JMHO Chris

Mark Hunt

No matter


which system is chosen, you will have to protect the boiler from low temp return water. Doesn't matter if it's steel or cast.

I've seen cast iron boilers disintigrate in less than 3 years when they were connected to gravity systems and piped wrong.

At some point you need to trust the company you chose to do the job. Boilers are nothing more than stupid pieces of metal with the fires of hell under them. They will perform no better than the installing contractor.

Compared to the boiler that you will be replacing, ANY boiler will be low mass.

If you have confidence in your contractor, let him do the worrying. It's what you're paying him for.

Mark H

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Will_3

More on the System 2000

Thank you for your comments.

After looking at the tech manual, I understand better how the EK1 works.
The Manager opens zones calling for heat when the boiler reaches 140F and closes them if return temp is below 120F.
It also comes delivered with a built-in bypass which flows through the DHW plate exchanger.

In my installation (primary/secondary, large volume), the built-in bypass is to be set to full open (vs 1/2 open for copper baseboard). Further a valve is placed in the return line to manually throttle/balance the flow to get a good low return temp and to minimize cycling. If that is still not enough than the return temp option switch is changed from 120F to 130F.

Frankly this seems like a bit of kludge and I'm not happy.
It sounds like a bunch of bypass/restricting going on and hard time keeping the house heated.

Do I wish I had gotten something else? Sure. But I signed a contract and at this point I don't know that I can change the system. Won't some EK supporter tell me this system will be just fine?

Joe_13

Doesn't your contractor carry other brands? As stated, a good high mass boiler like buderus with controls will cost at least as much. He'll still gets the job and you'll be happier.

Geno_15

2000

Depends, depends, depends. I had an old house once, it wasn't gravity but had c.i. rad's and large diameter piping. It was one or two circ cycles just to get the pipes warm. I cut all of it out, ran copper to the rad's, zoned the house, and installed a bypass in the return.. This cut the load on the boiler tremendously. The 2000 has a bypass so that's covered. You should look at zoning the house as much a possible, even the bathrooms, this will require repiping but will cut your load on the system by running all the radiators at the same time. Insulate all the pipes.I installed quite a few 2000's but I can't remember a situation like yours. It may be impossible to zone because of the gravity piping. Good Luck.

Roger

System 2000 answers

It's good to see lively discussion on the topic of System 2000. Hopefully this will help clear up some questions for everyone IMHO:

The primary/secondary piping recommended by your contractor is superb. This will most likely heat your radiation more evenly than before and provide an improved level of comfort. The boiler will heat your large volume cast iron radiation as fast or faster than a large mass boiler. This is driven by the output of the boiler (BTU/hr), and not the mass of the boiler as some indicated (a fairly common misconception). "High mass" boilers do not store enough energy to heat without the burner running (demonstrated by a run time of 8-12 minutes to heat up to operating limit with no load). In fact, if the boiler is a lower temperature than operating limit, a significant amount of energy will be used to heat the boiler and not you home EVERY cycle it runs!


The manager has condensing protection built in as standard. Additionally, the bypass directs some supply into the return to break the return temperature. This will prevent the return temperatures from causing flue gas condensation in the boiler - no mixing valves, etc. are required or recommended. The boiler is steel and cannot be thermally shocked or cracked like cast iron.
If you would like more information on steel versus cast iron, please see our website at this page: http://energykinetics.com/afue.html


Outdoor reset is a control scheme to reduce the temperature in the radiation and potentially in the boiler to reduce off cycle losses. The manager control purges heat left in the boiler and virtually eliminates off cycle losses (this is much more effective than just reducing boiler temperature as in a indoor/outdoor reset control). You can use it on System 2000 for your primary/secondary system, but it is not necessary.


Depending on the age of your existing system, I would recommend a Y-strainer in the return and potentially tie the injection pipes into the top of the existing radiation supply (primary) loop. This should effectively prevent debris from the old system from entering the boiler. This will be the case with any boiler. Cast iron boilers can also act as sumps and accumulate debris internally, reducing performance. The Y-strainer is a good way to address this potential concern.


System 2000 is a low mass, cold start and cold finish boiler. It's designed to put the heat where the thermostat (and radiation) direct. Because of the high performance insulation, the boiler will not heat your basement through jacket losses like conventional equipment. Also, there is no draft regulator - so unlike conventional designs with high jacket losses, this heat will not get sucked out of your home either. The energy recovery will purge the heat left in the boiler to the last zone that called. This will improve comfort and will not effect condensation. There are no flue products in the purge stage, so there is not a high source of water in the boiler to condense.


I hope this helps and that you feel your buying decision is very informed and appropriate. We have many, many very satisfied homeowners with primary/secondary systems as you describe - additionally, I will be surprised if you ever hear the system run (its that quiet)!

Happy heating everyone!

Paul Mitchell

ek

i am with roger...gonna love it when its done. have one in my house and wish i had done it sooner.

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kevin coppinger_4

If it were me....

I would ask if the contractor has done the gravity conversion set up before w/ the ek2k...explain to him your concerns and ask for other choices. I can't imagine that he would put in something you are not happy with.If he is fully sure it will work and asure you of comfort and savings...go for it...best of luck. kpc

Mike F

buderus with egomatic control can handle ANY RETURN WATER TEMP. regardless of supply temp. check out their web site

heatboy

What I have seen.

I wasn't going to jump into the fray, but since Mr. Marran chimed in, I have a few observations I hope can be answered satisfactorily.

I had installed more than a couple System 2000 boilers in the early 90's and still do service on these and others I haven't installed today. I am very familiar with the pros and cons. Mr. Marrans comments obviously reflect his bias towards his own equipment. His E-mail address will point to this.

My first point is he is lumping all "high mass" boilers in the same pile. This is a huge misnomer. The highest quality oil fired boiler I have ever worked with is a high mass boiler. Additionally, it has no practical low limit so it can be hooked to a cast iron radiator system with no by-pass or other boiler protection. Frankly, it thrives on low return water temperatures. All single wall heat exchanger style boilers must observe return water temperatures. Whether their color is silver, blue, yellow, green or pink. It is physics.

"The manager has condensing protection built in as standard." This is true, it does. But with this, it acts exactly like the mass boilers with tankless coils they promote themselves against. With the boiler being so small and not having any mass, it short cycles the zone valve severely, especially on start-up. The burner runs, but there is no circulation outside of the boiler, in essence sending fuel up the chimney while the zone valve is closed waiting for the boiler to heat back up, wasting energy. Again, just like the tankless coiled boiler. P/S piping does help when hooked to cast iron, but it still short cycles the zone valve a lot. Naturally, during moderate weather, the issue shows even more due to low heating loads.

A strainer is absolutely critical with these in retrofit applications. High mass oil fired boilers have areas where debris can settle UNDER the flame so there is very little performance penalty. Strainers should be used here also, but it is not near as big a deal. With the plate heat exchanger which EK uses as their standard domestic hot water production, fouling of the boiler side is very possible without the strainer. When that happens, flow through the boiler, which must always happen when the boiler runs, is hampered or stopped having a few undesirable effects.

Then there is the issue of burner short cycling when it is used in a multi-zone fin tube baseboard or fan coil systems. There is no way around this. It is a good thing it is quiet because people would flip if they heard it start and stop as often as it does. Being quiet is due solely to the fact that no draft regulator is used. EK claims no penalty in performance, but I noted lower stack temps and slightly higher efficiences when I put a draft regulator on, just for fun. The boiler better be a "cold finish" boiler because any heat left in there gets sucked right out of the boiler up the chimney. You see, there is very little pressure drop through the gas side (less than -.02") and the heated house air just goes right through the boiler during off cycles. Oops, did someone mention no off cycle losses?

My final note is to say the EK is a fine piece of heating equipment and I have been familiar with it since the late 80's, but it is not the slice bread as touted. Also, this is just a contractor's point of view, so take what I say with a grain of jaded salt ;-)

hb




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Roger

Some answers as requested...

Thanks for your comments, hb. Some interesting observations also. Here are some of my thoughts (please take them as a friendly response):

The burner runs based on the load in the system as mentioned - if there is no load, the manager does not run the burner simply to heat up the boiler in case there is a future load. Field studies, lab studies and independent lab studies indicate the System 2000 burner cycles thousands of times less annually than tankless coil boilers and less than typical cast iron boilers with indirect tanks. Especially during summer months.

System 2000 is designed to provide optimal delivered performance. This includes minimizing all losses in the system (off cycle losses, standby/hot water losses, room air and draft regulator losses, stack losses, etc.). Draft regulators account for up to 8-14% gross losses, so the appearance of lower stack temperature with a draft regulator is masked by the reality of continuous infiltration air in the home (more drafty, less comfortable, higher fuel bills). This infiltration is further reduced by the outside air connection available with System 2000. The basis for these studies are input/output tests (measure the fuel consumed very accurately and compare to the actual energy delivered to the heating and/or hot water system).

The System 2000 boiler is extremely quiet due to the design with 10 feet of flue passage wrapped around the burner flame. Up to 4" of insulation bury the combustion noise in all other directions (very much like a muffler). By the time the flue products leave the boiler, they're effectively muffled. A draft regulator does provide a direct connection to flue, which also allows noise to escape on typical systems.

The zone valve cycling mentioned can be remedied by opening the bypass slightly to break the return temperature more and it's primary purpose is to keep the boiler return temperature above flue gas condensing temperature. Primary secondary piping helps reduce (in fact will virtually eliminate) possible cycling based on the injection flow rates (physics). The energy provided by the burner during this cycle is solely to bring the boiler to non-condensing operation and is recovered at the end of the heat cycle in post purge (with the exception of near negligible combustion and jacket losses in the 30-60 seconds it takes to adjust).

Good questions - keep smiling!

P.S. Roger's fine instead of 'Mr. Marran'...have a great day!

heatboy

Roger.........

touch

Steve Eayrs

ek boilers on high mass systems

I see no reason you will have a problem using an EK boiler for your system.....if its done w/ the primary/secondary, and pumps & piping are all sized right.
I'm not sure where some comments are coming from, like Joe who said "the Ek must post purge or it will turn to steam". Not a clue what you mean by that Joe, as nothing turning to steam, at the temp. any hot water boiler is designed to operate at.
As others stated the post purge is for putting the heat where it can be used best, instead of having residual heat loss and an overheated boiler room most of the year. You may think that that residual heat is not wasted, because it heats your upstairs floor some of the year, but its been proven that the majority of the year, in most places, you don't want or need this excess heat. Even up here in Alaska there are a lot of overheated boiler rooms.

I would recommend the indoor/outdoor reset, (like tekmar 260) and only circulate the temp. you need to heat the house. You are not running the boiler directly off the indoor/outdoor, as it will cycle as designed, and inject into the house loop at higher temp..

I am currently doing a EK boiler, on a 200' long shop, that has a 2" loop running the length of the building, w/ multiple zone/pumps pulling off this loop. The boilers (2 of the EK-2) are injecting into this loop. The pump on the main is sized to maintain a max. of 20 deg. delta T, which I know it will.

If its done right you will have no problems. If its done wrong than the best boiler around will not work well.

I have installed at least 200 EK boilers, but also install Buderus, Veissmann and others, but consider EK a great boiler........if installed right. I do not see the EK boiler as one that costs more than the other high efficient, nicer boilers, after you consider the items included in their package, that you may have to add to some others.

Steve

Roger

Good questions.

Is there a difference if the heated air goes through the boiler or the draft regulator? And, will a “less restrictive” boiler allow more air to flow up the chimney?

Some of the primary drivers in determining the air flow up the chimney are the temperature differential from the base of the chimney to the top, the height of the chimney, and the pressure drop in the vent system (through the boiler, or draft regulator in this example). If there is very little or no temperature differential, the chimney will have very poor or no draft (not much air flow). A draft regulator can supply room temperature air to a chimney and provide an engine for draft, especially on cold days.

If the boiler is hot, air flow through the boiler will strip heat out and result in increased fuel consumption and support higher draft than just room air as a source. The draft regulator creates an infiltration that must also be supported in fuel consumption.

Relative to boiler pressure drop on oilheat boilers, the most significant restriction is typically the air band for the burner (roughly a few square inches) and the retention head. This is probably the overriding factor determining flow through the boiler as compared the pressure drop in the boiler itself.

In summary, System 2000's cold finish and outside air connection with no draft regulator is a powerful combination that provides high efficiency operation. If a boiler is hot or non-cold finish, chimney draft is sustained and losses occur through the boiler and the draft regulator. The room air losses are significantly determined by how much air flow goes through the burner and the draft regulator.

What about outside air temperature and efficiency for an outside air combustion source?
The air temperature does not significantly impact combustion efficiency. A burner running with 40% excess air (30 CFM stoichiometric + 12 CFM excess air = 42CFM) at 70F will run at 50% excess air at 35F [ratio of absolute temperature (460+70)/(460+35) x 42CFM = 45CFM]. This is also offset slightly where fuel supplied from outside the building envelope is also more dense. We find the burner motor inside the insulated air box and the piping also helps pre-heat the air so 35F (even in Arctic conditions), so this is a worst case scenario. There are some very minor loses to this heating of the make-up air in the coldest weather. This is much less significant than room air sources for combustion.

How about pipe sizing?
System 2000 has a built-in bypass that breaks the return temperature. The only time the injection zone valve shuts down is when the mixed return temperature is below condensing for a period of time. System 2000 can have returns colder than 120F from the system and will still operate above condensing temperature. 1” is appropriate for the injection piping – if a cold injection return causes more than one or two cycles of the zone valve, the injection return ball valve can be throttled, reducing return flow slightly. Depending on the length of the injection run, the pressure drop and flow through a 3/4” run may also be adequate for the 100,000 BTU load described. The manager control also has short cycling control built-in, so the burner will not short cycle on operating limit (if there is any significant load, it will run to satisfy the load; the large water volume provides a significant base for this load).

I hope this helps answer some of the questions.

Have a great day!

Roger