New oil fired hot water baseboard system is up and running great. Contractor left two valved T’s at supply and return, and will be coming with the wood/coal boiler sometime in the next couple of weeks. He left a T’d valve at the supply and return on the boiler, and is going to pipe the wood/coal with 1 and 1/4 inch steel pipe with a circulator, air trap, and expansion tank. Says this way, the boiler remains hot at all times, better for it, and it give me some heat storage as well. Didn’t have money for a “gassifier” and he wasn’t sold on them anyway, without heat storage at least.

Anyone used a set-up like this? Problems?

Thanks in advance.

buck1200 - 14 January 2008 09:46 PM

Could you also accomplish the same by using a small buffer tank (albeit with quite a few tappings) in place of the yellow distribution loop?  Seems like that would nix a circulator, right? 

Separate question: adding tappings to a pressurized tank would require the work of an ASME certified welder in order to remain legit.  Is that true?

Yes that is absolutely true if you’re concerned about that type of thing.  That work would fall under a pressure vessel code or power piping ASME B31.1 I wouldn’t be overly concerned if you’re doing it on your own equipment though I’ll bet the warranty would be broken anyway.

solarguy - 15 January 2008 08:42 AM

if you chose to install a primary/secondary piping configuration you are better off to use zone valves for your zoning needs instead of circulators. You will still have the primary circulator on your loop, the circulator on your wood boiler. The theory behind this statement is as follows:
When you look at a pump curve, most small wet rotor circulators (Taco 007) will pump up to
14 gallons per minute depending on the head. Most of the heat zones in an average home have less than a 20,000 btu heat loss which equates to 2 gallons a minute of flow. 1 gallon per minute @ 180 degress= 10,000 btus at a 20 degree delta. When you zone w/ circulators you could be pushing 5 times that water thru the loop than you actually need which results in more fuel consumption.

Plumbers zone with circulators, heat men zone w/ zone valves:)

I think you could have too high a flow rate with a zone valve system, when only one zone is calling, and you sized the single pump for the capacity of all the zones - it becomes oversized for that one zone?
But the most important reason to utilize pump zoning is that in the event of a pump failure, you still get heat to the other zones with the properly working pumps. That will keep the occupants happy until the pump is replaced, and hopefully even prevent frozen and burst pipes during severe cold conditions.

jimmie ray - 14 June 2010 10:45 PM

solarguy - 15 January 2008 08:42 AM

if you chose to install a primary/secondary piping configuration you are better off to use zone valves for your zoning needs instead of circulators. You will still have the primary circulator on your loop, the circulator on your wood boiler. The theory behind this statement is as follows:
When you look at a pump curve, most small wet rotor circulators (Taco 007) will pump up to
14 gallons per minute depending on the head. Most of the heat zones in an average home have less than a 20,000 btu heat loss which equates to 2 gallons a minute of flow. 1 gallon per minute @ 180 degress= 10,000 btus at a 20 degree delta. When you zone w/ circulators you could be pushing 5 times that water thru the loop than you actually need which results in more fuel consumption.

Plumbers zone with circulators, heat men zone w/ zone valves:)

I think you could have too high a flow rate with a zone valve system, when only one zone is calling, and you sized the single pump for the capacity of all the zones - it becomes oversized for that one zone?
But the most important reason to utilize pump zoning is that in the event of a pump failure, you still get heat to the other zones with the properly working pumps. That will keep the occupants happy until the pump is replaced, and hopefully even prevent frozen and burst pipes during severe cold conditions.

You are absolutely correct. When a circ is sized to provide required flow to all zones simultaneously (design conditions) it stands to reason that flow will excessive when only one zone is calling. This can be solved in a couple ways. The first being to install a pressure differential bypass valve and bleed the excess energy created by the circ back into the return or by a far more preferable method which uses a variable speed circ that ramps up and down according to the load.

Also very true is that a multiple circ system provides you with redundancy not achievable with zone valves.

LeonMSPT - 21 November 2008 10:27 PM

New oil fired hot water baseboard system is up and running great. Contractor left two valved T’s at supply and return, and will be coming with the wood/coal boiler sometime in the next couple of weeks. He left a T’d valve at the supply and return on the boiler, and is going to pipe the wood/coal with 1 and 1/4 inch steel pipe with a circulator, air trap, and expansion tank. Says this way, the boiler remains hot at all times, better for it, and it give me some heat storage as well. Didn’t have money for a “gassifier” and he wasn’t sold on them anyway, without heat storage at least.

Anyone used a set-up like this? Problems?

Thanks in advance.

  i have a d.s.machine coal wood boiler.i had oil boiler that i tied in totalked to lot of people asked plumber got million answers and many plumbers not interested in installto much work for them and area they never do.basically they want boiler with all controlls on it ready to wire to 120 then hook up oil lines takes them about 8 hours and they make 1500 to 1000.so i hooked up my self running about 2 years plumbed it series circuit not put 3 inch and quarter valves in oil fired boiler return line shut middle one off open two outers so flow is .out of top wood boiler down to oil boiler up threw oil boiler out to base board back down to return into bottom of wood boiler.when i dont use wood boiler i close outer valves on return line open middle valve shutting off water flow to wood boiler.i think i got valve idea from alternate heating web site.my dump zone is separate zone ran threw old cast iron radiators boiler holds 85 gal radiators are half capacity around 40 gal.dump zone has its own circulator thats turned on by aquistat switch on top off wood boiler also has its own zone valve also has another one thats normally closed until power failure the it gravity flows.all controlls are taco boxes have step down transformer built in hot water tank connections called prority zone that means when hot water calls for heat heat zone are turned off till hot water up to temp no shortage of hot water.my buddys electrician and helped wire.taco controll boxes really make install easier.4 wire zone valves 2 wires for opening motor off valve ,other to wires are end switch that turns circulater on ,all locations for wires are labeled inside box real easy.other controll box is for dump zone aquastat switch on top of wood boiler turns on controll box that opens dump zone valve and turns on circulater.originally i hooked up wood boiler parralel to oil boiler return to return out put on top hooked to oil out put did not work correct wood boiler temp around 190 oil boiler around 140 more water was circulating threw oil than wood boiler.all electrical on original oil boiler is factory no changes.have stainless steel type a chimney heats up quicker better draft easier cleaning.had in block chimney low draft creosole build up plus that red clay liners are junk and coal fumes detroy in no time,had many discussions with people about chimneys they are good for oil or nat gas ormaybe old fire place,not for coal chimney run around 2000 block chimney aruond 2500 with in stall ,plus ss goes up lot faster.basically no contracter wants to work unless he can make 1500 a day on project or min 500 a day,they all cry about being broke but dont want to work unless they can hit it big on you.i work on cars hourly rate is 40 dollars hour when contracters come to us they sure dont want to pay talk about cheap drunks.so when hooking these thing up your on your own unlee you want to pay like 10000 intall.any question e mail me i dont mind giving advice mine is up and running great ,best way to learn is make mistakes and learn from them ,you could draw all diagrams plan out then start and everything changes