Dead Men's Work Undone

D107

"Hydronics: Primary Lessons Learned in a Secondary Way".
Interesting that he says ..."it could have worked just as well, and at a lower initial cost, if I had gone with the wider temperature drop, (40deg) the smaller primary loop, and the smaller primary pump..." and with "...supply and return manifolds to grouped secondary circuits..." on the one pipe prim-sec system. (Though I think that being that the system involved some radiant circuits drove alot of his thinking.)

I'm sending you the article directly FYI since I don't think I'm allowed to post copyrighted material.

Anyway thanks for the creative solution. Sounds like it might be a little zoning overkill for my fairly small house. I think we have 10 rooms including the basement. However on second thought, I wonder if TRVs are any less expensive than the minicircs inc. labor and materials--since to use TRVs I'd first have to repipe up from the series loop to at least a one-pipe system.

Real problem would seem to be that the location of those minicircs would be all around that perimeter primary loop (basement ceiling) which aesthetically could be a problem. (If I understand your setup correctly.) Be nice to keep manifolds in the boiler room but then you'd have that much more piping to the base of the branch piping to and from each rad.

Currently heating is pretty even in all the rooms except for the porch sun room on slab which should have its own zone.

Thanks,

David

D107

Old gravity one-pipe system converted to unwieldy series loop

(1924 colonial 40K loss/76K gain). When prior owners removed old coal then oil-fired boiler and repiped/zoned in early 80s they separated into main, 2nd and basement loops. Main and 2nd are cast iron.

Had a pro over yesterday to look over the system and had my suspicions confirmed. Problem is, for upper floors at least, the Dead men very smartly started the run in 3/4" piping, which was OK since it came off a 1.5" or 2" manifold. This was before Diverter Tees so the first three rads of five in upstairs line were throttled to balance out the heat distribution to the remaining three (they had 1" feeds.) I'm sure that also pushed some more heat to the main floor rads as well. (Pro said with the 3/4" at start of upstairs run they must have had some kind of pump even back in 20s, but who knows..)

But now as a series loop system, everything starts at 3/4" and even for main floor has 3/4" piping between rads and 1" risers. I was told this was done for aesthetic reasons so pipes wouldn't be visible from basement ceiling or require soffits. Both main and 2nd floor runs are about 150 ft each, basement is 80ft of Slantfin 15 baseboard. I'm sure lack of knowledge also played a part in this setup. (along with the circs on returns, no backflow preventer, etc.)

So now unless I repipe to monoflo or two pipe (probably not doable for me now) using a mod/con (as Mike T pointed out in recent post) is probably not going to be that beneficial over a high efficiency atmospheric.

I wish the Wall had been around for the previous owners.

David

Weezbo

do not be in such a hurry,....

granted things might be a little different buh i tend to think you would do wonders with a second opinion.

D107

Thanks and I should be clear that the Pro wasn't saying not to

go mod/con but it was my surmise from a few wall posts and my own observations. But we'll probably figure something out.

Thanks,

David

Steamhead (in transit)

David, if you want to do something really different

repipe the system primary-secondary. Run a primary loop all around the basement and take off to each radiator or baseboard with its own secondary loop and miniature circ. You want zoning? This will let you zone room-by-room! Control the water temp with the usual outdoor reset unit.

Dan's friends the Levi brothers did this in their oil company office and showroom. It worked great. Somewhere there's an article about it....

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Steamhead (in transit)

If you use a drop ceiling in the basement

you have all the access to the minicircs you'll need. Manifolds work well too but as you say, with everything in a home-run to the boiler room you have more piping in most cases.

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D107

yet another good idea--also perhaps some version of an

exposed beam ceiling with white painted sheetrock in between and 6" above the joists with pipes hugging the corners when perpendicular to beams and tucked between when parallel. (not a big fan of dropped ceilings, aesthetically.)

Also perhaps covering the 1" pipes with a soffit and having white-painted metal access boxes for the circs as part of the soffit.

Whatever I do I have to keep in mind aesthetics for potential resale someday. Of course what I forgot is that I'd have to have either a TRV or thermostat for each room.

Actually to be rid of the problem of the 3/4" risers to the three rads, a separate secondary series loop circuit could be made for them alone so the other more central 1" fed rads would be free of that constriction. (That would maybe be one-pipe for separate main floor and 2nd floor zones. Basement baseboard is just a loop.) Then I could keep the supply and return manifolds and primary loop in the boiler room. With the addition of an indirect I'd end up with 5-6 zones instead of the current three, not too bad. Have to add two thermostats. I should probably look at this in the morning before sending it, but hopefully it makes some kind of sense. Such a thing as 1" pex supply one pipes?

I've decided that primary secondary pumping is the Zen of heating; surely it's a metaphor for something.... I'd forgotten I had Dan's book Primary/Secondary Pumping Made Easy and tried to read it today. Yikes--I sing in 12 languages but this is a new one.

Thanks,

David