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Want to Use Muchkin Boiler?
Brian Tober
Member Posts: 18
I have a older home with cast iron radiators and also was looking into the new high tech wall mount boilers. Takagi looks like good product. I was going to home run each radiator to a manifold with PexAlPex tubing and remove the rad valves and control the flow at the manifolds. My question is can those little suckers actually produce enough BTUs to heat 8 iron radiators?
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Comments
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Can i use a munchkin Boiler
Group
i have an old home with radiators and is approx 4000 sq feet
I was wondering if there is a Munchkin Boiler out
there that i could use in place of my boiler.
Also can i vent the pvc pipe from a munchkin into a chimney?
Or do i need to plumb the exhaust horizontal out a wall?
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Answers
Can you use a Munchkin?
Yes
Can you vent it into a chimney
No
Can you vent it out through a chimney using the chimney as a chase?
Yes
Can you run the exhaust out a side wall?
Yes0 -
And
Should you listen to Steve?
Yes.
This is fun.
Mark H
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Mark
Had any fights with builders lately?
I'm still all in a lather about the 10"x22" "mechanical chase" this past week that was supposed to accomodate 2-8x18" ducts, hot and cold domestic lines, the sewer line, an additional 6" warm air run and the 6" ventilation duct.
I get so frustrated with these types I could just chew nails.
"What do you mean you can't downsize the duct?" he says.
AAAARRRGHGHHHGGHGHHH!!!0 -
It's easy Steve
Just join the Magician's club. I'm going to start selling magic wands for such jobs over the internet. I'll have my Lawyers make up a fine print disclaimer sheet. I could make more money than a radiant floor internet company. Heat loss? You don't need no stinking heat loss. Just use the Wayco Wand. No problem.....disclaimer. :P WW
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oh ...and by the way my engineer Designed it. so ,....
evidently You just dont know how to do the math
)) )
i have a 24 " round...they cut a 24 " hole whats wrong with that picture? exactly the exterior of the pipe would have to be dimensionless
)) I vote a magic wand over me on the end of a jackhammer 0 -
ya know
A good builder would find a way around this? Your just being difficult. You should try and find a way to do it!! LOL..:) glad I'm not doing that one...0 -
No fights with builders
just with other "heeter guys".
Not trying to sound elitist, but I don't want to be called a heating contractor anymore. That lumps me in with some less than savory characters and I don't want to be associated with them.
I'm getting tired of having to de-program customers after they have been indoctrinated by the church of "dats duh way we always dun it" reading from the book of "you don't need dat expensive stuff". Well......not actually reading so much as aping a picture they saw. Reading is strictly forbidden in that congregation.
Know what I mean?
Mark H
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Look Ma
No Plates!
-Andrew0 -
You're on to something
Weez,
I think you and WW need to team up. I'll do the product marketing. My "vision" is for a "light duty" wand and a "heavy duty" wand. The light duty wand is made from the biggest, narliest, cuts anything from 4x to steel beam sawsall blade we can find. The heavy duty one if made from a star tip from a mid sized demo hammer. We paint them up and write up a very amusing set of instructions.
Plumbers buy them to keep in their tool case. Whenever someone asks for the impossible, you go to your tolbox, pull out the appropriate magic wand and discuss how to correctly apply it.
Maybe we can have a time at wetstock for people to toss the idea around. The initial batch can be just for present and past wetstock attedees.
having fun being silly,
jerry
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Yur onto sumptin mark
My brother came up with a term for what we are. We're not heeting guys, we're "Practical Engineers." Practical Engineers with Wethed leanings I say.
See you all in Minn. WW
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I wish
it were that simple.
More like, "Look ma! No brain!!"
Mark H
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Come back Joe
Sorry I hijacked your post here. My answers were kind of short and directly to the point but didn't provide a lot of additional info. If you want to discuss more, please dive right in here. We're always getting sidetracked on a tangenital trajectory of some sort.0 -
Steve is correct
As usual...
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Am not!!
> You CAN vent a Munchkin into a chimney!
>
> Use
> the chimney a combustion chase and run the PVC
> vent through to the top bird screen cap.
>
> We do
> it all the time. Ask Chuck Shaw.
>
> _A
> HREF="http://www.heatinghelp.com/getListed.cfm?id=
> 68&Step=30"_To Learn More About This
> Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in
> "Find A Professional"_/A_
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Thanks Ken
Pardon me whilst I try to fit my head through the door. (grin)0 -
OK here goes
I have a 1860 Built home with a partially blocked
chimney. I was thinking of using a Munchkin Boiler and
just vent it outside.
I have radiators all thru the house(4000 sq ft of home)
how can i calculate what i need in size for a boiler?
Also before people start saying just get a liner for the chimney etc etc etc.. The chimney is showing its age etc0 -
The easy way...
figure on about 50 btu's per square foot per hour.
The hard inexpensive accurate way.. Click on the Free Heat Loss program to the right and figure out how big the boiler need be.
Whatever it is, the Munchkin will modulate down to whatever the load really is. Anticipate a 30 to 50% reduction in fuel consumption.
ME
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Where to Buy
Where's my best bet to buy a Munchkin Boiler??
My maint. Crew at my work can install my boiler, I just need a place to buy it from?0 -
Buy it from
Whomever is going to get the phone call when it doesn't work some cold Saturday night at 9PM.
Seriously, give that train of thought a little consideration. One of the biggest, and sadly, the most common mistakes that I see people make is to assume their heating system is just a collection of parts and pieces. Anyone with a pipewrench and/or torch can put it together. Not so! Especially with the high efficiency stuff. It has to be installed correctly, the system piping and pumping need to be right and careful attention has to be paid to flow rates on these little buggers. If these are not addressed correctly, you'll wish for your old boiler back. Not joking.0 -
truer words
were never spoken. I'm scheduled to repipe a new munchkin where the plumber tried 3 times and couldn't get it right. You could see the frustration in the piping. The General and Plumber are long time associates but the relationship appears to be strained after this endeavor. There is a difference between plumbing and heating systems. A whole different set of knowledge and experiencce between them. Cheapest way is to do it right the first time. Get a Wethed if you can. WW
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I'm not familiar
with Tadagki(?) Does it have condensing abilities? I have had great succuess using the Munchkins with Cast iron Radiators and using outdoor re-set to change the water temps in accordance with the outside temps. It saves big money especially when the radiators are oversized. The lower the water temp the more the savings. I have one job that was an old gravity system. I was able to edge the maximum temp down to 140 degrees at design temp of 10. The customer saved about 50% last Winter. WW
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Takagi's are water heaters...not boilers
I would not use a takagi on a cast iron rad job. I doubt the copper HX can take it.
Stick with the Munchkin or the Peerless Pinnacle.
It will not be long before the tankless mfg'ers bring their boiler products over here. They see the demand for the small wall mount stuff going through the roof. I give it one more year and I'll bet there will be at least 3 total from the tankless big 3. (Noritz, Rennai, Takagi)
One thing though; it better say "boiler" on it!0 -
Takagi
If you go to the Takagi website and download the .pdf specs for each model they show diagrams of them used for Heating applications as well as Domestic Hot Water, or even both from one unit! The TKJR is 140,000 btu input and sells for around 600 bucks. I called them today and they told me yes they can be used with cast iron radiators as long as I use some type of filter system to catch sediment that might flake off the inside of the radiators over time and get into thier heat exchanger. Isnt a boiler just a big cast iron hot water heater when you think about it? Hell for 600 bucks I'm gonna try it and even if it lasts 5-7 yrs just toss it and get another one, by then they will probably be even cheaper or sold at wal-mart!0 -
Hehe
Now there's the American mentality.
Low initial investment. Everything is disposable.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic.
-Andrew0 -
Check with
Your local code jurisdiction first. In many states it's illegal to use a non rated appliance such as a water heater for heating system use. Here in Michigan, we can't even use an MZ for heating service. If it's not ASME rated as a pressure vessel, you may be in trouble codewise. Your insurance company may also have some "reservations" about your approach.
As the old saying goes "hindsight is always 20/20".
Cross your t's and dot your i's before you take the plunge.
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NJ Use
Bruce Supply in Keasby NJ is the distributor for Takagi near me, I talked to Takagi directly first, and they said they can be used for radiant,baseboard,or radiators. I then called Bruce Supply 732-661-0500 and they said they have been selling them like crazy, and to do my heat loss calcs then call him so he can size the correct Takagi. So obviously somewhere around NJ they are allowed to use them for heating, but everywhere is different, from town to town, so I better check the codes like you say. The condensing boilers look the same as Takagi but they use PVC vents, this uses cat III vent pipe, so no they are not condensing boilers, but they have 85% Efficiency, not bad from my view over here behind my NJ Nat Gas "Budget Plan Bills".0 -
You're right
> Now there's the American mentality.
>
> Low
> initial investment. Everything is
> disposable.
>
> Maybe I'm just
> pessimistic.
>
> -Andrew
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Heat Loss for existing house
Joe (and Mark Eatherton),
If you happen to have a few month's natural gas bills for the house, the energy usage should be right on them (probably in therms). You can then back out the design heat loss in Btu/hr knowing the average temperature for the month (this is also hopefully on the heat bill). You also have to make an assumption about the efficiency of the current boiler.
Given that is nearly impossible to estimate the infiltration heat losses in an old house, the heating bill method is ultimately the most accurate, and much easier than doing a full blown manual J heat loss. If the energy source is propane, it's a lot harder to back out the monthly usage, but still possible.There was an error rendering this rich post.
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A lesson learned along my life's road
> Bruce Supply in Keasby NJ is the distributor for
> Takagi near me, I talked to Takagi directly
> first, and they said they can be used for
> radiant,baseboard,or radiators. I then called
> Bruce Supply 732-661-0500 and they said they have
> been selling them like crazy, and to do my heat
> loss calcs then call him so he can size the
> correct Takagi. So obviously somewhere around NJ
> they are allowed to use them for heating, but
> everywhere is different, from town to town, so I
> better check the codes like you say. The
> condensing boilers look the same as Takagi but
> they use PVC vents, this uses cat III vent pipe,
> so no they are not condensing boilers, but they
> have 85% Efficiency, not bad from my view over
> here behind my NJ Nat Gas "Budget Plan Bills".
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A little lesson I've learned
Just because someone says you can, doesn't necessarily make it the right thing to do.
Don't ask how I know this little adage to be true.0 -
Oh Sure! Blame Me ! *~/:)) Thats Just Great ! :)all i said was i thought a magic wand was a better deal than a sledge hammer ...sheesh.. 0
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ASME vessels
I saw somewhere that the tankless heaters are getting around the ASME pressure vessel thing because they are under 200K BTU input and therfore do not need to have that. Do you know anything about this criteria? I see that the Takagi install manual says the unit is "Suitable for potable water and space heating". Does that mean they are trying to classify it along the lines of say a portable electric heater or kerosene heater you can buy at Kmart? Also why do they call boilers boilers they dont reach 212 degrees? I guess its left over from steam boilers and they keep calling hot water ones boilers when they actually are not.0 -
Do you think your maintenance crew is capable?
Munchkins and any condensing boilers are high-tech. They will also need an expensive combustion analyser to set it up. A smart bet would be to get a professional from this site (FIND A PROFESSIONAL) who works with Munckins. Just trying to save you and the great guys at Munchkin the headaches when it doesn't perform like it should. Mad Dog
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Brian, we are only speaking from experience
Boilers are for heating.... water heaters are for hetaing domestic water. Can you fit the round peg in to the square hole? sure, but you may pay a price down the line. The big difference will be in longevity. Mad Dog
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Brian
You seem like an intelligent person so I figure you deserve a few intelligent answers to your questions. A few of the issues you will face when trying to make the Takagi, or any instant hot water heater work for domestic are listed below.
The first one is that the Takagi doesn't have normal heating system type controls on it. The burner is triggered by water flow, not by water temp as in a boiler. After it see's flow and fires, it then modulates the burner to the temp setpoint. The setpoints are limited to 113*, 140* and 180* unless you buy the "remote control". If you need 180*, it's mandatory to have about 8-10 GPM going through the TK or it will trip the high limit. Instantly. This is true of all tankless heaters.
Depending on how you are going to pipe the system, this can be a real headache because many times in a typical zoned system the flow may not be enough to even get the TK to fire. For example, if you have one zone calling for heat and it flows say, 3 gpm, none of these units will ever hit 180 or even 160 without tripping the limit. This means you will have to use a buffer tank that is maintained at a given setpoint by an aquastat. One side of the tank will have a high flow circ on it going to the TK while the other(system) side will need all the same circs and controls you would normally associate with a boiler system. In most jurisdictions, you will also have to install the TK to the same spec as a boiler which usually means a low water cut off, backflow preventer, pressure reducing valve, secondary high limit etc. Some of these may be on the TK some may not.
The basic operational principle of a burner triggered by flow will cause you more headaches than you understand. It changes a lot of things as far as how your system has to be laid out and controlled. Please take it from someone who has used these in heating applications, there is a lot more to it than meets the eye at first glance. It's not a matter of connecting the pipes and plugging it in. Control is everything.0 -
Controls
Thanks for the info, finally someone elaborated on the nuances of these tankless things instead of just saying dont't do it. I can totally relate to controls problems. I work for an industrial controls integration company. We program PLC's for industrial machine control automation.0 -
It's not complete yet...
.... but my sizer is drinking milk. For grins and all that, fire it up in Excel and tall me what you think. It may even work!0 -
calculating design heat loss from historic data
Constantin,
This spreadsheet looks like it has promise, but I'll have to roll up my sleeves to test it...You might even want to start a new thread on this since it's kind of buried here...
I was a little surprised to learn how even the best companies size boilers for existing buildings. They will diligently crank out an estimate (but not measure every crack in the old building) while the actual data is staring them right in the face (heat bills).There was an error rendering this rich post.
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Keep in mind,
that spreadsheet was a two hour excercise to keep my excel skills current... More will come, such as the ability to enter MBTU vs. kW, etc.
Hey, if it's free, it's me. Cheers!0
This discussion has been closed.
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