CT area plumbers?

redryder2006 said:

Hey all. Anyone here know of a plumber in the south eastern CT area that has some knowledge of gassers? I want to replace my steam heat and radiators with a biomass combo 40 with a backup propane burner. This would also mean replacing all radiators with hw baseboard.

Local plumber quoted me $17k to do the job. Thats with me providing the unit and doing all the demo. I think he was outside his comfort zone and didn't want the job. I'm more than capable as a helper to run the pex in the crawl space but I've never hooked up a boiler unit before so I'm alittle out of my comfort zone as well.

Thanks

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Aubin and Sons Plumbing Thompson Ct 860-753-0168. They are on the Mass. line but are a Tarm/ Froling dealer and have installed Empyre for me.

If you want to try your hand at it have a look at what your non-plumber neighbor in Bethel accomplished:

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/a-few-pictures-of-our-boiler-systems.75006/

Search on Briquetmaker.

Just a question, why baseboard? I think you'll find(from many experienced members on this site)) that your radiators may be very useful. Also look at low temp panels. Others should be able to give you better info than me

Cast iron rads make great rads even with somewhat lower temps.

I think they'd have to be in pretty bad shape for me to consider yanking them.

There should be some threads on here with people putting old ones into their new systems.

maple1 said:

Cast iron rads make great rads even with somewhat lower temps.

I think they'd have to be in pretty bad shape for me to consider yanking them.

There should be some threads on here with people putting old ones into their new systems.

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I agree, if they don't get in the way they're great. Unless they're the type of steam radiators that don't have a via across the top. I don't see how that type could work for a hot water system. That could be the situation here.

redryder2006 said:

Here are the type of radiators I have. There are 4 threaded ports. Top and bottom on each end. If I reuse them can I pressure test first? Does it matter where the inflow and outflow lines attach?

I have heard that alot of these radiators have gaskets that when converted to water can start to leak. Anyone know anything about that? Thanks.

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That's the kind you need for hot water, with the passage across the top same as the passage along the bottom. They go for $100 and up on CL if you can find them. Some guys luck into a pile of them for scrap price.

It looks like a swaged design, they typically will never develop leaks except from freeze damage.

Normally water enters the bottom from one side and leaves the bottom from the other side. The hot water entering immediately goes to the top on its end and falls to the bottom on the other end.

I believe everybody's going with a parallel supply and returns with TRVs to control different zones.

If you plan on doing any re-plumbing to convert to hot water you may want to go around and put a couple drops of ATF on anything you need to take apart down the road.

redryder2006 said:

View attachment 112733

So plumb them like the attached diagram? The more I think about it the more I'm leaning towards reusing the radiators.

Should TCV's be fitted to each radiator or should I plumb the first floor and second floor on different zones with dedicated thermostats? Or should the whole house be plumbed on one zone with TCV's fitted to each radiator to control temps in each area?

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On one extreme you could run a 3/8" PEX 'home run' circuit to each radiator with its own TRV. I would think you could run bigger tubing to two or three radiators in series and run them all with one TRV. I'm sure there's a lot of nice options out there these days that I'm not aware of. So do your research, and also hopefully somebody will chime in with better insight.

redryder2006 said:

Btw the combo 40 is the unit I was planning on using. I looked for a tarm but was disappointed to see they have discontinued their combination units.

http://www.newhorizonstore.com/Products/142-biomass-combo-boiler.aspx

This may seems like a silly off topic question, but what happens if there is a fire burning and electrical power goes out? Will the boiler be damaged or will it just burn like a standard wood stove?

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Interesting unit, just from the pictures it looks like they did a good job of maintaining a good design for both heat sources.

You need a power failure strategy. It you have storage above the boiler then you can set it up to flow heated water into storage by gravity flow. Or you can have a 'dump-zone' in the house if the pipes are big enough and the water will flow to it by gravity. Or you can have a dedicated 'dump-zone' device above the boiler consisting of a few sections of finned baseboard piping that water can circulate through by gravity. The dump-zone strategy requires a normally open valve that opens up when power fails.

redryder2006 said:

View attachment 112733

So plumb them like the attached diagram? The more I think about it the more I'm leaning towards reusing the radiators.

Should TCV's be fitted to each radiator or should I plumb the first floor and second floor on different zones with dedicated thermostats? Or should the whole house be plumbed on one zone with TCV's fitted to each radiator to control temps in each area?

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I would add a boiler protection loop to keep your return temps above 140°f.