Has anyone worked with this baseboard?

Dave Stroman

Try a boiler bypass. This is where you take some of the return water from the system and bypass the the boiler and send some of it back to the system. This will temper the water going to the baseboards rather than blasting them with 180 degree water. The baseboards will gradually come up the temp.

John Ruhnke1

Has anyone worked with this baseboard?

I have a client that has this baseboard installed. It is very noisy due to expansion and contraction. Can it be fixed? or is it always noisy? I mentioned outdoor reset but they didn't want to spend the money to repipe and rewire if not needed. The temperature is as low as you can go with a coil in the boiler.

JR

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hydronicsmike

My good friend John...

...hope all is well.

I don't think there is too much you can do to eliminate expansion noises as such, unless you do outdoor reset or have something that can adjust the flowrate through your baseboard based on the load. The latter isn't that easy to achieve.

If spending a few dollars bothers your customer more than the noise, I guess he'll have to deal with it.

What other options are there?

Mike

Steamhead

Try adding a tank to the coil

which will let the boiler fire only when the house or the tank calls for heat. This will mean lower water temperatures, less expansion noise and fuel savings.

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Art Pittaway

Where is the noise

coming from? It looks old, has it always made noise, did the supports have plastic "glides" that wore out and fell off? Was it installed or "repaired" so it's fixed or loose at one end and is now trying to move an anchor or wall instead of float? The suggestion was made to repipe with a tank, reset and constant circulation, that will give them a slower cycle up and down, no hot/cold cycle...no noise.

Dale

If it's series loops

I would go to constant circulation if possible, and get rid of the domestic coil. the other posts on changes to look for are correct of course, I like constant circulation but that would get things a bit warm with a low limit.

Marc Finn

Outdoor Reset

Outdoor Reset will not fix anything. On a very cold day
the morning setting of the day/night temp-stat will invoke a rush of 180 degree water from the boiler into the cool baseboards and if the noise is rapid baseboard and
expansion from the pipes, the Tekmar will not eliminate them at all on a very cold day. It will reduce noise on milder days.

Patchogue Phil_17

Paint bound

It is hard to tell from the picture, but is the paint making the fins "stick" to the body of the housing/covers? If so then the fins cannot move with normal designed-in contraction/expansion. That would cause a lot of noise, I think.

My $0.02

hydronicsmike

I ...

Do not agree.

The whole point was that with Outdoor Reset the zone doesn't shut off at all, or only for a very short period of time. Expansion noises occur when the baseboard (in this case) heats up and cools down. What are you basing your comment on outdoor reset on (whether it would be tekmar, honeywell, heat-timer, who cares...)? You are arguing the obvious.

Reset will fix it. There are tons of jobs out there to back it up. Show me one system with outdoor reset that is setup properly that has expansion noises. If yours do, then the water temp is still too hot. Lower the heating curve.

Mike

Marc Finn

Will not work

Yes, expansion noise should occur when the baseboard heats up and cools down. However, when baseboard makes noises at times other than during startup and cool down then the outdoor reset will simply not solve the problem on the coldest days. The problem may be a shoddy install.

hydronicsmike

The point...

that you don't seem to be getting, is that with outdoor reset, the zone should not be shut off for a longer period at all! Will this not eliminate the expansion noises if you don't give it a chance to cool off so that it has to be heated up again??? Coldest day or not.

What I am gathering out of your post, is that you are experiencing expansion noises in your baseboard system, right? If so, I can tell you why that MAY be. You are doing night setback with the thermostat, but you don't communicate that to your control. As far as your control knows, all it needs to do, is give you a water temperature based on outdoor reset. All heating curves are designed to give you a water temperature based on outdoor condition to maintain your indoor temperature at a constant (typically 70°F). If all of the sudden you only want to maintain a lower Indoor Temp (Night Setback), then the heating curve would need to be shifted down so that it gives you a lower water temperature during that time. It is a physical fact that you need a higher water temperature to maintain a higher indoor temperature at the same outdoor condition. So if you want to maintain a lower indoor air temp, the water can be cooler.

In your case, you are still sending the same water temperature to your baseboard while you are trying to maintain a lower indoor temperature. In this case, the water is too hot and forces your baseboard zones to call for a shorter period of time and stay off for a longer period. This is what causes your expansion noises.

I hope that you don't read any this the wrong way, but I know it is easy to do so. All that was intended, is to address your specific problem that you seem to have. If I can help, I will. It makes my day if I can help others. I am just very convinced that outdoor reset does work for this. This is what I do for a living and if I couldn't eliminate those kind of concerns or problems, I wouldn't have a job.

Kindest Regards,

Mike

John_19

no expansion with proper reset

Marc, with all due respect, I think you're confused about outdoor reset with constant circulation. The "reset" doesn't work on/off, rather, it controls water temperature over a continuous range as outdoor temperature changes. Therefore, there is never a sudden rush of hot water, and also therefore, outdoor reset really shouldn't be used with setback thermometers. My hot water radiators used to bang with expansion when I had an old boiler. Now with a new boiler and outdoor reset, I never hear my pipes or radiators, and I also never set back the thermostat. The indoor temp is a constant.

Marc Finn

my trial

If the noise is rapid baseboard and piping expansion from thermal dynamics, the Tekmar will not eliminate them at all on a cold day, but might reduce them at all other times.

hydronicsmike

I agree with what you say...

...but have you used Setback in a system before when you used setback thermostats and provided a setback signal to the control at the same time before?
It works, but to work properly and to eliminate expansion noises and temperature swings and to increase efficiency, you'll have to be able to shift the heating curve.

There is really no other difference between setback and non-setback, other than the water temperature that is required to do so.

Marc Finn

did you try it yet

Have you installed outdoor reset yet.

Steve Eayrs

Marc, We have done a lot of tekmar indoor/outdoor, with a wide range of their controls, and it works great in any weather, (even the -0 stuff) AS LONG as you are also doing CONSTANT CIRCULATION. Even if you don't have enough baseboard, or a real poorly insulated building, which causes you to set the heat curve on the high end, constant circ. or a more constant circulating temp. will still eliminate most of the noise.


With oil fired or boilers that need to maintain a higher min. temp., we use the injection pump controls and set the I/O curve according to the heat demand.


As you stated yourself this does not work well with regular setback thermostats. The point is don't use regular setback thermostats, but controls that do the setback by adjusting the heating curve, (as other already said).


I personally feel the injection pump control does a better job than a buffer tank method, and after including the piping for the tank, and extra room needed, etc., the injection pump is well worth the slightly higher cost.


If your indoor/outdoor jobs don't make any difference in noise levels, than it has something to do with how you are piping or adjusting them. Either that or the rest of us who have made comments here.....own stock in tekmar. I wish!


Steve