Pump Away and noise

mellow

> i have i contractor friend that installed a <BR>
> system with pump away, and then had to move the <BR>
> pump to the return side cause the customer <BR>
> complained of noise at night - that was a new wet <BR>
> rotor pump that came with the boiler. it was <BR>
> silent after the switch.<BR>
> <BR>
> what are peoples <BR>
> experiences with this?? how about noise in a <BR>
> pri/inject/sec to baseboard loops, more pumps, <BR>
> and on longer???<BR>
> <BR>
> what are people doing about <BR>
> the pump noise - short of putting in those copper <BR>
> braid covered pipe isolators<BR>
> <BR>
> this is yet <BR>
> another advantage of radiant!!!<BR>
> <BR>
> thanks <BR>
<BR>

Kal Row

is pump away noisier??

i have i contractor friend that installed a system with pump away, and then had to move the pump to the return side cause the customer complained of noise at night - that was a new wet rotor pump that came with the boiler. it was silent after the switch.

what are peoples experiences with this??
how about noise in a pri/inject/sec to baseboard loops, more pumps, and on longer???

what are people doing about the pump noise - short of putting in those copper braid covered pipe isolators

this is yet another advantage of radiant!!!

thanks

hr

Determine the noise source

A good wet rotor pump is extremely quiet. Most you have to put a meter on to tell if they are powered! Generally the noise is small air bubbles not yet purged, cavatation. A good air purger and proper expansion tank location should hahdle it. it may take a few days. Sometimes increasing the system pressure will "tighten the bubble" and help eliminate the culprit:) Try running the fill up to 20 for a while.

Or a chunk of debris in the rotor vanes, solder, gravel, copper shavings, etc, will cause an out of balance vibration noise. Usually a different pitch from air noise.

I try not to mount the pumps against a wall, and use those unistrut clamps with the rubber inserts. Or insulate the pipes and hang from around the insulation.

Injection mixing systems purge best with two purgers. One in the primary loop, and a second on the secondary. sometimes air in the distribution loops has a hard time "crossing the injection bridge." A basic cast iron scoop on the boiler loop, and a Spiro or Honeywell Sparco work best on the secondary loop, I've found.

hot rod

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Kal Row

pump noise

i told him the same thing about wet rotor noise - but he said it sounded like a muffeled mewling cat, it stopped when he put the pump on the return - now he doesnt ever want to hear about "pumpaway" - i also think it was the air he got out after the refill and not the pump move - kal

Dan M

Pump noise

I have some very low level Pump or "water velocity" noise in my system also. The system is about two years old ( radiators new pipe) and has a single taco 007 pump. The noise can only be heard when nothing else is running in the house but is a steady Low level drone. The pressure tank is a new bladder style tank with the air scoop on top and a honeywell/Brinkman plastic air purger. System presure cold is about 15psi with contiuous circulation pumping away. You cannot hear any air in the system until the gv5's internal pumps kick on at heat cycle, then you hear a pretty good amount of air for a short time at the boiler piping. The radiators are quiet with no real air sounds at all . It seems that I can never totally get all of this remaining air out . I have checked every connection for leaks and found nothing. The system heats great. I would like to get rid of this remaing air. It acts (amature opinion) like the air bubbles get traped in the boiler during nonheat cycles and then zipp past my air scoop at the start of the cycle. Is their a better air purger for this kind of air problem.

Kal Row

noise

it's hard to extract air out of cold water, thats why it helps to use a pri/injection/sec loops, so as to keep the boiler loop hot and be able to get track the air,

those new ones like spirovent and it's work-alikes like
sparcovent or the new one from taco, are good,
a basic air scoop is almost useless,
i also put a tee under mine with a drain ballvalve to get the sludge out and my expantion tank and feed come
into the side of the tee.

sprirotherm also sells a spirotrap to collect the sludge
and also a combo unit http://www.spirotherm.com/combination/

Cosmo_2

noise

I will venture into this debate.
#1 Any pump will vibrate a little when on. The reason why you don't hear anything when installed on the return I assume is that the circulator is mounted very close to the boiler block with schedule 40 threaded fittings. The mass of the boiler soaks up the vibration and you don't hear it as much. When installed on the supply after the expansion tank (where it belongs) the pump is now away from the boiler block and instead may be installed on copper pipe, and a solid hangar is installed next to the pump and is attached to a wood joist above. The vibration travels through the hangar and resonates in the joist bay. You need some sort of cushion, either a cushioned strut clamp, or a piece of pipe insulation and a clevis hangar. Anything to isolate the vibration. Vibration noises are transmitting from the pump (or pipe within a couple feet of the pump), and the building structure. That should help solve that problem.
#2 I believe that after a while a properly installed standard ole' air scoop will remove JUST AS MUCH AIR BUBBLES as a Spirovent-style air eliminator. The advantage of the Spirovent is that air bubbles are removed faster, and can work at higher system water velocity and/or turbulence. Sludge? In a closed hydronic system, where would all this sludge come from? The problem is continously adding new water to the system. Bleeding radiaors of water, emptying full compression tanks, and flushing the system water again, and again, year after year is not proper maintenence. A properly designed and installed hydronic heating system never needs to be purged of air except for the initial installation, or when the system water has to be emptied for a repair- or remodel/retrofit. I had a customer who emptied his steel compression tank every month during the winter, he said he saw the service man do this every year and though it was good to flush it out! I tried to explain how with the right accesories the tank would not have to be emptied (B&G Airtrol) it took 5 years and a plugged up boiler replacement to convince him. There also might be a small leak in the system and an automatic fill valve keeps adding new water to the system.

Just my opinion....

Cosmo

hr

You might try

A Grundfos 15-58, an extremely quiet circ, especially on speed 1.

What type of boiler? Some copper tube boilers make odd noises.

I agree with Cosmo, where is the sludge coming from? A good clean, water tight system should not create sludge.

Yet another try would be a hydronic system conditioner. It will scavange small amounts of O2 and prevent corrosion. Use a cleaner first if you have a sludge build up!

hot rod

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Kal Row

vib and sludge

i myself use the various vib isolation tricks
- but i havent seen anything in all the answers the give me the amo to counter my friend's argument that "pump-to" is inherently quieter than "pump-away", cause nothing will do it as well as a huge hunk of cast iron, filled with water moving in a serpentine fasion through the segments - it's the ultimate muffler

as for sludge, i was talking about a job where i am replacing the boiler and and boiler room piping on a 25yr old system, and trust me, there is plenty of junk in it, and i dont want to mess-up my brand new job, i will flush it of course, but perhaps i should put in a return line filter, i come from the hvac business, mostly cooling, and anytime i open a system, it gets new filter/driers.

Earthfire

Strainer

You could install a strainer in the return before the boiler, but who is going to blow it down routinely and then you get into the fresh makeup water issue. The only equipment that I spec strainers on are small passage boilers like the munchkin or ultra or a gravity conversion.

Kal Row

strainer

yeah i thought of the same thing
even tempraraly will probably give me problems
i do connect all the drains in the system together
with 5/8" clear plastic hose with hose fitting and
tees so it should be easy to see it i have a problem
only the the center port on the back-flow-preventer
gets a hose vacumn breaker as is required by code

i also dont hook up a drain hose to the relief valve
cause i want the homeowner to know about it if it blows
there is that new WAGS valve that taco makes for water heaters that sits on the floor near the the hot water
heater and shuts the gas an water if it picks up water on the floor i wonder if can adopt this to a hydronic setup

Kal Row

strainer

yeah i thought of the same thing,
even tempraraly, will probably give me problems,
i do connect all the drains in the system together
with 5/8" clear plastic hose with hose fitting and
tees, so it should be easy to see if i have a problem,
only the the center port on the back-flow-preventer
gets a hose vacumn breaker as is required by code
at least in nyc

i also dont hook up a drain hose to the relief valve
cause i want the homeowner to know about it if it blows

there is that new WAGS valve that taco makes for water heaters that sits on the floor near the the hot water
heater and shuts the gas and water, if it picks up water on the floor, i wonder if can adopt this to a hydronic setup