Continuous Circulator Operation

F Reynolds

I just had a new boiler installed, and observed my upstairs bedrooms are colder than the downstairs rooms. Primarily in part to the shorter span of baseboard radiators located in the bedrooms. My family room has a very long baseboard which probably makes the family room hotter, and it is also where my thermostat is located. I would like my house to be 70 degrees all the way around (family room and upstairs). I am wondering if leaving my circulator running continuously, even when there is no call for heat, would help, hurt, or not make a difference. If this is not the example that would benefit from a continuous circulator operation, what would be the benefit, if any, of leaving a circulator running continuously during the winter? I have a Taco 0011-F4 Cartridge Circulator on my WM Ultra 155. Thanks for educating me on boiler systems. Website has been very useful. F Reynolds

Mad Dog

If done properly, constant circulation is beneficial as long

as the boiler is piped primary/secondary. Your problem may be t-stat location as you suspected...that long piece of baseboard may be satisfying the thermostat before the rest of the house is warm. I would consider relocating that to a colder if not coldest room in the house. Mad Dog

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John Mills_3

I had a job

generic 2 story house with baseboard, old Triad way oversized. Put in a Series 2 and wired for constant circulation. Customer calls back a week later, house feels wierd, not like it used to. Took my digital thermo over and measured every room. Found a MAX of 1.5 degree difference from room to room, from floor to floor, addition, bedroom, U name it. Someone did a nice job of sizing radiation and the constant circ. brought it out.

F Reynolds

Primary/Secondary?

I don't really understand what you said about the boiler boiler being piped "primary/secondary". What does that mean? I have a previously gravity fed system, with no zones. Reynz

Dale

Pri/sec

The idea is to avoid problems with a possibly too cold water returning to the boiler and making it condense the flue gasses which can cause corrosion, this may or may not be a problem with your system. I too think the old gravity systems benefit from constant circulation. Since the pipes are big the pump should have a small head, you don't want the water moving too fast. If I were you I would have it made constant circulation and leave the pump run all winter.

somebody

Dan M

My weil Gv 5 is set up for constant circulatiuon and my rooms are fairly even as far as temp ( radiators). With the constant circulation it seems like the radiators all heat up fast and evenly. The only downside is the low level water velocity noise in the pipes. My pipes are newer 1 inch copper with a taco 007.

Joe_13

I would think that constant circ might over shoot the thermostat after heating even with oudoor reset (which I hope is being used.) Are the BB copper fin? You might just want to close some of the convector vents downstairs to try slow the heating, allowing upstairs to catch up before the thermostats satisfied.

F Reynolds

Continuous Circulator Operation

Thanks for the information Joe. I really don't know what the construction of mine are. They are Weil-McLain Low Baseboard radiators, probably iron. My new pipes are (coming from my boiler) 1 1/4" inch copper to my existing 2" iron supply lines, then to my existing 1" individual iron supply lines to each radiator.

Art Pittaway

Just to test it out.....

put some aluminum foil over a large portion, maybe a third of the fin tube element in the family room. That will cut the output down. It's a Micky M... way to check it but if you can balance the heat, you will know what the problem is.

Joe_13

With CI Rads and BB

the only other simple solution might be seeing if you have any valves on the supply lines to the first and upper floors. Restricting the flow to the first floor might allow more hot water to flow through the second floor BB's.

somebody

Testing

> the only other simple solution might be seeing if

> you have any valves on the supply lines to the

> first and upper floors. Restricting the flow to

> the first floor might allow more hot water to

> flow through the second floor BB's.



Testing

somebody

Testing

Testing

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F Reynolds

Restricting Flow

Joe, I have valves coming out the ying-yang with my system. It seems everything done in this old house was done correctly. I can close the supply lines and/or return lines for and from EACH AND EVERY baseboard radiator in the house. Closing off or restricting flow to any radiator is not a problem. Thanks for the advice.

Dennis Bellanti_2

The very best way is..

To put non-electric zone valves at the baseboards with an outdoor reset control on the boiler. Non-electric valves modulate which "bleeds" just the right amount of heat into the system constantly. The outdoor reset will modulate the water temp to match the needs of the building and will also turn the circulator on and off. We have done tests... with electronic zone valves we saw room temperatures go 3 degrees over setpoint and 3 degrees under, a total variance of 6 degrees. With non-electrics it was 1/2 degree over/under a total of 1 degree. Very comfortable and very efficient, reliable and easy to install.

Jed_2

Assumptions, Assumptions!

Hey! guys, I haven't heard anyone question further as to just what piping system Mr. Reynolds has in his home, after the addition and renovations. It sounds to me that his system has been converted from something that wasn't forced hot water heat. Now, was the piping one-pipe, two pipe, direct? reverse? Also, I can't gather enough info to determine if he has all C.I. radiation or a mixture with copper fin baseboard.

All the suggestions I have seen are great suggestions, for the right piping. How much re-pipe cost would Mr. Reynolds have to fund to achieve any of your suggestions? Does his current piping system lend itself to a more simple solution? From the given information, can any of you definitively present a solution?

Suggestions for this or that are great, but; I think they just could confuse Mr. Reynolds more.

Maybe many of you already know what his piping system is intuitively, but I ain't that smart.

If he has a two pipe system, with mixed BB radiation, and valves up the ying-yang, is there any hope for a simpler solution?

I'm really looking for more facts.


Jed

F Reynolds

Great Questions Jed!

Jed, thanks for the questions.

My system was a gravity fed, two pipe system, as of a week ago with a Hydrotherm R-180 gas fired boiler, 124,000 net BTU output, manufactured in Feb 1977. The home is heated with Weil-McLain No. 9 cast iron base boards, fed in parallel, that appear to have been properly sized (within reason) with the 45 BTU per cu. ft. of room space (thank you JacktheShack) each calculation, with two exceptions. The baseboard section running along the entire back of the house, heating two bedrooms on each corner of the house and the back hallway section are connected in series, with the largest of the bedrooms the last stop before the water enters the return line. The second exception is the family room with about 25' of baseboard heat (absolutely too much for the size of the room), however, it helps because half of the family room sits over an unheated concrete slab crawlspace. Neither the wood floor nor the concrete walls of the crawlspace (under the family room) are properly insulated. Now to the part where I feel like an absolute idiot. I took a couple of thermometers and tried to get a reading on what temperature the family room was (where the thermostat is located) compared to the upstairs bedrooms. There appeared to be about a 4 or 5 degree difference. I looked at the literature provided with my Honeywell Deluxe 7 Day Programmable Thermostat, and discovered after checking with their website, that the thermostat not only senses ambient air, but also radiant heat. Ugh! I suppose it was not a good idea to put it 8' across from a base boarded wall, or about 4' from a light. Honeywell tells me if you stand in front of it long enough, it will start to detect your own body heat. Guess I have to relocate it to a wall not affected by direct light and not across from a baseboard.

I have received a tremendous amount of help and assistance taking my from the "I'm an absolute idiot and know nothing" to the "I know enough to be dangerous stage" and have just about figured it all out (I THINK). Several suggestions have come in where the sender has assumed I knew more than I really did, and their answers meant as much to me as technical information detailing brain surgery. I also heard a lot about TRVs. Well, I have not found any information about how or if you could install a TRV on a baseboard heater. Can you? Secondly, I've considered a two zone system, but that is costing an arm and a leg. Not a good idea yet.

This entire project started with the birth of my triplets, now 23 months old. I was concerned their bedroom was not warm enough for them considering they are not good at covering themselves up yet. I ended up putting an electric heater in their room. Their first winter saw gas bills upwards of $450 for the highest bill. I made a big push to make the system more efficient by purchasing a Weil-McLain Ultra 155, using a Taco 0011 circulator to move the water along. If I'm going to go efficient, I want it to be the most efficient on the market. Now if I can just get my room temperatures to synch with each other.

I have started on that project by slowly but surely closing the valve to the heat in the family room until all or most of the rooms catch up to the temp in the family room. I will also add to the 16R or 19R insulation (vermiculite and 11R fiberglass insulation, installed by a previous homeowner upside-down with the facing towards the unheated attic and not toward the living space, and properly insulating the crawlspace with 19R under the floor and along the concrete crawlspace wall. As with most systems (contrary to how a gravity system operates) with the addition of the circulator, the downstairs baseboards tend to heat up before the upstairs ones do. I intend on continuing to adjacent the valves on the supply lines to the downstairs baseboard radiators to get as good a balance as I can with the temp upstairs and downstairs. I am also going to relocate the thermostat. I have decided to set the circulator in the continuous running mode, which is acceptable according to Weil-McLain.

I’d appreciate any comments, concerns, questions or ideas you might have to help with the situation. I’ve learned a lot in the process. F Reynolds

kevin coppinger_4

are there shutoff at each of these baseboard rads?

If so do the TRV/non-electric valve...fixes the problem one and for all. kpc

F Reynolds

Baseboard TRVs?

Do they make TRVs for baseboard Radiators? Who makes them, and how are they installed?

kevin coppinger_4

Like I said...

it depends on how the baseboard it hooked up...Oventrop,taco and danfos all make non-electric trv's.They are installed on the supply side of the baseboard/radiator and will shutoff when the room gets to the desired temp.kpc

F Reynolds

Shutoffs

No, the only shutoffs are in the basement on the supply lines going to each radiator, with he exception of the long one across the back of the house. Also, there doesn't seem to be much space once the cover on the radiators are removed, to "pipe in" a TRV, but I'm not sure.

GW

my two cents

Hi Mr. Reynolds,

I breezed through all the comments, sounds like you got your money's worth out of this site!

Whenever I see old CI heat, whether Baseboard or old fashioned rads, I really try to educate the customer about constant circ. Because you have so much mass, stopping the flow doesn't help the efficiency- we call that stand-by loss. Now, a simple copper fin tube BB in low mass- not a big deal at all to stop the flow because it doesn't take much energy to re-heat the system.

Viessmann and Buderus are two boiler manufacturers that really understand this, and they have room sensors (not simply 'thermostats') that can manage the correct temperature, and make sure the boiler isn't firing below the fuel's dew point (and circulate at the same time, I should add).

Gary Wilson


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F Reynolds

Thanks Gary

You got that right. I am someone who likes to research a topic to death, then make a decision. No sense in reinventing the wheel, there are years of experience reading and responding to these emails posted by novices like me. And obviously, those well versed in heating come here for help also. Question for you, what does "CI heat" mean? Secondly, I gathered from your email, that since I have the cast iron baseboards, you highly recommend constant circ. Thirdly, are there any room sensors or other such devices that would work with a WM Ultra? I think I saw on the Viessmann site a unit that said "would work with any....."

What do you think about restricting the flow of the water in the family room by closing down the valve a little to allow the upstairs heat to catch up with the family room heat? I have heard a lot about restrictors to slow flow down to radiators, but closing the valves down a little would do the same thing, right? F Reynolds

Mark J Strawcutter

piping

I suspect Kevin was referring to single-pipe/monoflo vs 2-pipe [in]direct return etc.

As for TRVs - they are made with remote sensors and/or setpoint adjustment. You could insert the valve part down in the basement with the sensor/setpoint up in the living space.

Mark

GW

Hi

Sorry, I meant cast iron ( CI ). I try to condense too much when I'm typing!

I most certainly would highly recommend a constant circulation system, but the problem is your boiler may not be able to deal with it- well, easily that is. Some of the guys mentioned TRVs, which is great. The only problem is you have baseboard, not too easy to attach these critters to CI BB. I would think perhaps they meant installing a non-electric room sensor with a modulating valve cut into the piping heading towards the CI heat. Still, the boiler would need to have a signal to "heat" 24/7. This is where it get's so much easier with the Viessmann or the Buderus.

I really don't know much about the Ultra- I've never installed one. I would be surprised if they did have this technology though.

Restricing the flow will ceratinly puch more heat upstairs, it's a simple balancing act, that's all. But, if you want the better way, you'll want to have constant circ. Because the copper fin tube is such low mass, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to toss a lot of technology at this style of heat, at least in my humble opinion.

Gary

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GW

yes

That is the best way, but one might have to build a space station to get this to work with what he has for a boiler. Will the W/M do this??

Gary

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F Reynolds

Continuous circulator operation

I think I broke the code. What a journey this process has taken me though.

Ok, here it is. Continuous circulator operation is definitely the key in keeping my home's temperature consistent.

My Weil-Mclain Ultra 155 had been set up to go on and off, up to a max temp of 190 degrees, to maintain a certain temperature set at the thermostat. The only problem was that the Ultra would increase 18 degrees every ten minutes until temp was reached and the call for heat was terminated. However, my CI baseboards would continue to heat, which ultimately made the house temp overshoot the thermometer by sometimes 4 degrees. The fluctuation was sometimes as great as 5 degrees difference. House cooled down to 68 or 69 degrees, boiler fired up, then the water heated upwards to 190 degrees and overshot the thermostat, partly because it also had to heat the massive CI baseboard rads. We were either too cold or too hot. I tried closing down or restricting the flow to the baseboard rads, I put little marks on the valves, and closed them 1/4, then 1/2, then five turns, opened them back up again. Ahhhh, I got blisters.

Floyd, in another forum here in Heating Help.com told me he turned down the target temp on his Ultra from 190 degrees at 32 degrees outside temp, to 160. This makes his boiler almost run 24 hours a day, at a lower temp to maintain a constant temp in his home. He said the lower temp allows his boiler to keep his heat constant, at a lower temp, which has lowered his gas bill, and help his home comfortable and warm.

Turning mine down to 152 target temp (found that magic number after a couple of trial and errors) kept the temp in my CI baseboard rads fluctuating from between 134 to 152. This seems to provide no more of a house temp fluctuation for me of 1.8 degrees, from 69 to 71 degrees on a setting of 70 for the house. Also since I have more baseboard area in the cold family room (over uninsulated craw space, and three outside walls), it keeps it up to about 73 degrees, and helps compensate for the greater heat loss in that room.

I’m a little concerned that since my heater is running almost 20-22 hours a day at about 152 degrees, that my gas bill is going to be over $1000. Floyd says otherwise. Does anyone have the calculations of how many BTUs 190 degree water puts out vs. 152 degree water? I understand it doubles and triples the higher you go. Do you think that I’m saving costs by allowing the boiler to continuously run at 152, vs. the run upto 190 degrees? I’d appreciate your comments. Reynz

Mark Eatherton1

I'm still thinking about it...

But I can tell you this, I installed a condensing appliance in my home, and it displaced a 40 gallon 80% efficienct water ehater that I was doing a FULL reset with, and I kept my system on consinuous circ with a slighlty lower than required operating tempeature (140 degrees F) and it seemed like it too was running most of the time, and my consumption decreased by over 30%.

Now, I'm doing a 5 degree set back during Away and Sleep periods with a Honeywell Intelligent Ramping thermostat. My poor heating system is so confused by all the controls it has on it, it thinks its a Janitrol furnace:-)

I don't care WHAT it thinks it is, its just REAL efficient.

I spoke with a doctor who's house we retrofitted on a steel pipe in floor RFH system to Warmboard S board (no longer made)and he said his house was more comfortable than it had ever been, and his gas bill (consumption) was down around 45% for the heating season first 1/4.

His system was set up with a Vision 1 control, continuous circ with what we thought was a slighly undersized boiler.

He's one happy, customer referring customer. (Done 3 more jobs as a direct result of him!)

I'll update everyone when the next fuel bills come in.

ME

Mark Wolff

Question Mark

How about electric? I stuck a Tekmar 260 in my OWN house. Saw the fuel savings, but a few months later was trying to explain the $60/month jump in electric. My circ is a Taco 007 and I can't place any other change to the timing of the electric jump other than this. All my fuel savings are lost on the electric. Our electric is over twice the national average though, so that may be part of the problem too. Any thoughts?