hartford loop weakness found

Joe_39

Upon furthur inspection i see that the return is piped into the hartford loop...and the im guessing the circ pump when off does not allow water to pass??? and prob there is a check valve like you said

thanks for the quick answers!

Joe_39

I was thinking about this and realized

a weakness in the hartford loop. Well, not really with the loop itself, but when you have a hot water zone off a boiler..

For instance I have a copper run for the basement heat with a circulator pump.. whats to stop the boiler from draining out if I develop a leak in that copper? There no hartford loop in that copper run..

basically its copper straight out of a tapping at the bottom of the boiler.. Now Im sure many many people have the same setup, multiply that by the number of faulty LWCO's that people arent aware of and Im sure theres been a few cases of boilers cracking running on no water.......

anybody ever think of this??

walter_8

That is why the return should loop back up above the waterline before it drops back down into that lower tapping. That way if the system springs a leak the water cannot exit the boiler. Some guys use a check valve. I think an actual loop up and back down is more fail safe and not very hard to make..

bob young

that is why we use flow control valves & check valves on those loops.