EDIT: I probably should have continued this thread I forgot I had started back in early 2022.
I’m considering buying a TriangleTube for my latest purchased home, and want to figure out what size. Since I’m going with a modcon, my gut tells me it’s ok to oversize it. Perhaps if flow rates are higher with the three pump/zone system, lower temperatures (more condensing) would occur. I don’t know.
The 1919 house (I don’t live in) currently is capable of cooking the place up with 190 degree water in short order and will have you sweating on that 55-60 degree day if you aren’t careful. This just can’t possibly be efficient.
I live (in the same neighborhood) in a 1929 built twin (connected on one side) ~2500 sq ft 3 story with a few 2-3” pipes nearly all wrapped in insulation in the basement before heading to original standing radiators. Attic is 4th floor well insulated. Walls have no insulation but are plaster over double brick. My single-taco pump TriangleTube Solo 110 is set to a curve of:
outside temp + water temp = 150 F
Nice and simple. It might not heat real fast when coming home from a trip, but it’s not really that bad. I like to start fires on the coldest of days too, figuring that’s when we get the most heat out of our fireplace insert. I think our gas bills rarely exceed $100/month whereas we might have burnt through well over 100 gallons of oil / month generally requiring more than two 275 gallon tanks per year. The TT modcon is great. I never added a water heater because our water heater was brand new when we got the TT. So it’s capable of running really low temps. Our water heater is probably terribly inefficient though.
Back to the subject property:
We bought this 1919 (in same neighborhood) 4200 sq ft standalone house this past summer and are renting it out. It’s got a gas cold start (bang bang?) boiler and two water heaters under the fireplace (was on porch wall that got enclosed and turned into an addition). It might be a long run to get PVC outside, but we can do it. It’s got 4” (or possibly 5”?) boiler pipes in the basement that I confused for sewer pipes with no insulation. I wonder if this house was originally a steam boiler setup. The heater went straight to 190 F when we fired it up. The first floor of the house was converted to cast iron baseboard from the original standing radiators. We are investing in this house, and I figure updating to a modcon is in the works. I like triangle tube (30 miles from me, and I can drive there for parts if needed) and heard a horror story of a neighbor with a Weil McLein. So I’m shopping for a TT again for our new purchase. (Our current TT hasn’t needed ANY maintenance in ~10 years of service now.)
Looking for advice on what to do next. Maybe get the power bills from the power company of my tenant.
Nearly 3 years later I am finally making some progress on it, and I started this new thread ….
On one side of the house, we have a porch with crawl space and the basement chimney goes right through it. That’s where the largest basement room is currently and the Weil McLain CGa 7 Gold and two water heaters utilize one half of the fireplace chimney. It’s a good spot for a hot boiler. However, most of our water use is on the other side of the house that also has the floor drain. So any leaks in this semi-finished area of the basement with the boiler and water heaters just runs across the whole darned floor. I want to install a modcon on the other side of the house, maybe a combi, and maybe a storage/buffer tank and maybe a hot water storage tank and/or heat pump water heater for summer hot water. Part of this move is to also free up the chimney to be able to burn wood. Hearth.com also got me excited about maybe even adding a wood boiler there. I’d like to put a pool/ping-pong table over in that area of the basement too. Maybe just a wood stove makes more sense.
So I am thinking that, at least for the short term, I want to make a large primary loop for the boiler so I don’t have to re-pipe every radiator and all the zones. That honestly might make sense in the end, but makes the project monumental. So I am thinking I can add the modcon boiler on the other side of the house, add the big loop, and just swap the connections with the existing boiler. I would think that doing this all in PEX would be economical, and also make it very easy for me to alter in the future. I don’t think I want microzones, but perhaps a buffer tank would enable that if desired.
I see some say primary loops should not be done with PEX, at least not close to the boiler. Does anyone have a strong opinion on this? Also, I am only familiar with smaller PEX sizes, and honestly I’ve never seen or worked with anything larger than 3/4”, having tools for 1/2” and 3/4” for potable water. So working with PEX in 1” and up will be new to me.
I am in love with Triangle Tube products and am now debating over Instinct Combi 155 and 199 which seem just so darned cheap it’s scary. One reason I like the Combi idea is because I want to buy an identical unit for my 2 story garage / pool house project. That would mean I’d have parts ready to steal from the garage in the event of a failure. The garage isn’t somewhere I really want to have a tank, and it’s only got a cold water line out to it now. Hot water line from the house just ain’t gonna happen, but I do have a spare 2” electrical conduit from the house to the garage. So it’s not impossible, just not likely.
I would be interested in hearing the opinions of others and wonder if I should put together some diagrams or photos and videos to help get advice from others.
I am really excited about building my Raj mahal of hydronics.
Another thing I am curious about is if we should try to staple floor heating under about 1.5” of wood flooring from the basement. Currently we have cast iron baseboard heaters (not original to the 105 year old house) on 90% of the first floor that is on its own zone. With all the cast iron plus the boiler in the basement, it gets to 76-80 F down there, which I’m sure is a real waste of energy. Putting my winter office down there might save some heating though.
Anyway, I’m looking to design my dream system for my dream house. Thank you in advance for any help I receive here.
Some older exterior pictures are below to get a sense of what I am working with.