New Mech. Rm. Photos

Mark Wolff

Here's my latest project, as always, pre-electrician, pre-insulator. I did not install a barometric damper on the flue pipe and I am not "piping away", but other than that do you guys see anything wrong? Also, check out the expansion tank straps. They are Metalbestos 8" wall bands. The 8" pipe is 10" outside diameter, with a 1/4"x4" machine screw and nut it works good.

ScottMP

Why

No barometric and why not pumping away ?

Clean neat work, no reason not to pump away, I am confused.

Scott

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Contractor"

Kal Row

beautifull, but

you could have at least hooked up the expasion before the pump inlet - as long as the pump is in front of the point of zero pressure change, it's ok, lots of people have the pump on the return since the boiler acts a a huge noise damper should the pump be noisy

joe_17

how

will you control draft with no barometric.nice clean job.

hr

Nice work

I agree with the others pumping away, or at least move the PONPC.

With 5 zone valves or more I like to install a PAB (pressure activated bypass valve) esoecially if that is a high head pump. It will adjust flow, eliminate any zone valve noise when closing, and greatly reduce velocity when only one, or a few zones, call.

Be sure to use iso valves around the PAB for service and purging.

hot rod

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Contractor"

GEO_3

That's alot of piping for a 007.

Dave_13

Is...

Is the line that runs from supply to return a DP bypass line???

GW

It would be great

if you could measure the head loss through that pump- it would require cutting in some taps for a gage. I saw the formula in siggys PM article recently.

Looks like the pump is way undersized, what model is it?

Gary

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Contractor"

Robert O'Connor_7

were is the drip for the PRV? is the boiler on blocks? that sure looks like a wood floor. did you put a valve between expantion tank & boiler. looks like alot pipe & not alot of pump. this isn't radiant i hope. leaving on a upper! very neat. must be a union fitter... boc

Glenn_3

Just a question

I've seen it both ways but is there an advantage to putting individual drains on each zone as opposed to putting one common backflush. Nice job

kevin coppinger_4

it looks like...

a 0010 to me...kpc

Bruce_6

other than

the flue damper, and the pumping away. you should at least install a Pressure Bypass Valve around that pump.

looks like a 0010, or 0011. pretty high head, especially if only one or two zones calls for heat.

you should get a drain on that backflow valve, they tend to drip, and you will get a call back when the customer thinks it is a leak.

good clean work though! very nice!

Kal Row

a better solution for all those hose connections.. is

5/8 clear plastic hose, plastic hose ends, and plastic tees, and pipe all the hose bibs together stright across
with the tees into a common open drain - this stuff is
inexpensive

this way, the drain is always there for you, and with the clear hose, you can see, if anything starts to drip, etc

if any part of the host gets rusty - you simply disconnect it there and drop some bleach through it - and have a nice day...

Unknown

Beautiful work Mark

I like the individual purges for each zone , it makes isolating and draining down a leaking zone much easier . Are those 1/2 inch ball drains ? Can you tell me who makes those ? That valve before the air can is a nice touch .

I see that the fluepipe goes right out the back into the wall . This is one of a few boilers you can do that with and still be able to clean inside the pipe . We use it all the time in Levittown off the floor . We also aren't able to install a draft damper because of the limited space .

A few questions - is there a low water cutoff on the boiler ? And does that single aquastat well go far enough into the tee to get a good temp reading ? Are you not allowed to wire up the boiler and controls ?

Excellent job Mark .

Mark Wolff

Pumping and baro

After reading all the posts on this site about it, I almost did, but, if you look on the supply piping, I did not have room to run a pump on that horizontal piping back to the wall. After the 90 there is a tee for the secondary high limit aquastat, then the Vortek air seperator, the another 90.

As much as this will shock all of you, I have yet to ever have pump noise or pressure problems from having the pump on the return. Maybe I'm lucky! I always have lots of air vents though, and my piping is anchored to the walls good so that might have something to do with it too.

The tee and baro would have extended the boiler too far into the room. I did have leeway on the stack height, so I adjusted for normal draft through that. The boiler has a pre-purge that starts some draft before firing, and the combination worked this time. Normally I would have a baro in the flue pipe though.

Mark Wolff

Expansion Tank

I like my expansion tank under the vortek air seperator, it tend to keep it full of water better, no air can really trap in it this way. As I said above, I have never needed to pump away, but I am going to be looking into the book just to see other potential benefits. We'll see.

Mark Wolff

PAB

I am going to look into the pressure activated bypass valves. With the Wirsbo HePex and type L copper, I'm not too concerned about the piping wearing out, and the heat will still transfer fine in the fin tube at the higher velocity, but I like the idea of having one anyways. That 0010 is a high velocity pump and a bypass would be helpful in some ways.

Mark Wolff

Pump

It's 1000' of Wirsbo HePex 5/8" tubing plus 1 1/2" type L copper manifolds, pumped by a Taco 0010 high velocity pump.

Mark Wolff

Misc.

PRV drains down a 3/4" copper line to 6 1/2" above the boiler stand. The stand is apprx. 16" off the concrete floor. The floor drain is nearby. The boiler rests on 1/8" aluminum plate on top of the boiler stand. No valve between boiler and expansion tank. I don't like them because some well meaning homeowner will ALWAYS shut it off eventually. Used to be a union shop but didn't work out. Long story, don't bother asking.

Mark Wolff

overhead line

That overhead line is actually the return piping for the indirect water heater. There was no other good place to put it without messing up all my pretty pipes!

Mark Wolff

Individual vs. common boiler drain

I have come to the conclusion after trying both ways that individual boiler drains are the only way to go. If I ever have to work on the system, I can isolate the area I am working on, relieve pressure and work on it with everything else still running. Also, bleeding air during recharge is much easier, I run it all out a hose until no more air bubbles come out with the water and 98% of the air is removed; the last little bit goes out with the auto air vents or in this case, the Taco Vortek air seperator.

This install happened to be with glycol so isolation of zones was more important to me. It is up and running right now, and I am happy with it.

Tomorrow I have 2 boilers to replace in a 20 unit apartment complex (early morning and late night!) so we'll see how it goes, I can't promise, but I'll try to get some pictures to post after they're done.

Mark Eatherton1

Why tempt fate...

Nice work Mark. However, the manufacturer calls out the use of barometric dampers in their specifications. Not having enough space is a poor reason for not putting one on and it won't stand up in court. There is a top flue gas outlet tapping that would have facilitated the installation of a baro damper without having to move the boiler any further into the room. They also show in 3 out of 4 ways to pipe the boiler to have the circs pumping away from the PONPC. The fact that you've "gotten by" not following pumping away practices doesn't suprise me at all. As soon as the fill pressure on the system drops, all hell breaks loose and it sounds like the customer has Niagra Falls in their bedroom walls. I remember from an earlier post that you like to run higher than nornmal pressures on your systems. Thats the ONLY reason you've not experienced any problems, I GUARANTEE it.

Your pipe work is exemplerary, but I wouldn't want to be in your shoes if ever there was a problem with the install that required a visit from a factory rep. The reps that serve our area would void the appliances warranty immediately without hesitation. You see, they too have something at stake in the proper installation, operation and maintenance of these appliances.

That's the reason they print those installation manuals, like http://www.weil-mclain.com/FTP/GOLD_Oil_Manuals/Wgoboilermanual.pdf

Keep up the good work, but do yourself and your customers a favor and follow the manufacturers instructions. Because if you ever find yourself in court for any reason, the first place the plaintifs lawyers will point to is the Manufacturers Installation Manual, and if you're not in compliance, you have NO defense.

Oh, and try "pumping away" the next time. It will cost you NOTHING but the time to think it over...and you WILL see, hear and feel the difference.

Thanks for playing.

ME

Arthur

Grerat Job

Mark,
What a great job, I've never believed in this pumping away business either. In all my installations I've used Looks like great job to me. Congatulations. Well done.
I've always piped my boilers up to pump to the boiler (pump on the return) and never had any problems,
Don't take any notice of these nit pickers.
Happy new Year.

Mark Wolff

Thanks

Well I usually am one too (nit picks) so they're probably giving me a little dose of my own medicine. I must say though that I appreciate the input from everybody. It helps me reevaluate my ideas, opinions and processes through outside evaluation. I would rather hear any ideas or corrections so my next one will be even better.

I'm thinking about trying pumping away on this job I have today (18-20 hour day coming up, it has to be running before I leave!), we'll see how it works.

Floyd_5

Try it Mikey!!!!!!

You might like it!

Oh, that's right your not Mikey....your Mark.....
Oh well, try it any way...you never know... you may find a new and better way to do something, never know till you try it! :-)

Just my 2 cents, Mark......I would have a real problem with that many zones and 1 pump.....have done it in the past and have found that it works better to have multiple pumps. I could think of a couple of different ways that I could do that job differently, For me, it would probably be ten pumps. Oh and the post about 80 bucks a year per pump.....maybe if your running constant circ., but here you would only be running each pump a small percentage of the time.....so......

Nice work though, always nice to see neat, clean installations.

Here's a pic of the same boiler that I did a while back.

Floyd

Kal Row

am i the only one using

Dielectric unions between the iron and copper sections
of my boiler piping, - i am starting to feel stupid

tim smith_2

piping job?

Nice looking work, I do see a problem that might be of concern. Why are you not piped P/S. Multiple zones may lead to shocking your boiler when the cold zones call and the boiler is already hot. Just a thought. Also regarding the pump away debate. I still find it odd that Burnham has provided there pump on the return of the Series 2 boiler for eons. What's up if it's all wrong. Although I still do tend to pump away on most if not all my jobs. But we do so many retros on old large pipe systems where pump away does not matter to speak of due to hardly any velocity any way. Just 2 cents. Tim

leo g_67

SWEETNESS!

nuff said!

leo g

Jack, CVMS

Nope, you're not...

the only one. I still use them on all installations... for several reasons.

It's nice to have unions between the boiler and the near-boiler piping, just in case you have to move the boiler out for some reason.
I've found dielectric unions to seal up much better than copper unions... so long as some knuckle-dragger doesn't tighten them with a 48" pipe wrench.

Jack, CVMS

Mark,

I really believe that if you try pumping away on a few jobs you'll never go back to pumping into the boiler. You mention never having pump noise or pressure problems with the pump on the return, but also state that you have lots of air vents. On our installs we usually install one vent - sometimes two - and rarely use an Air Scoop, Spirovent, or any other device for removing entrained air. We do an extremely thorough purge through each loop after the boiler is up to temperature (which it sounds like you do), and leave the ball valve under the auto-vent(s) open for a month, then close it(them). Have never had a single problem with circulation, nor any sign of air in the systems.
From posts here on the Wall, I'm rethinking my stance on air separators, but once I changed to pumping away (over 20 years ago) I've never looked back. Believe it or not, the pump becomes more efficient when pumping away from the PONPC, allowing a smaller pump to do more, as well as enhancing the life of the pump.
BTW - that's a work of art. Beautiful!