Baseboard Heat - Will Pipes Freeze if use Wood Burning Insert to heat house?

elkimmeg said:

TedNH said:

This is all assuming that the baseboards are on a closed loop off the boiler from the hot water for showers/taps?

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Ted every tankless boiler used for heat and hot water has completely separate systems even a separate heating coil for both
now if something happened the coils would have to be cracked and for all intent and purposes the boiler is a total.
Chances are one would see the puddle on the floor first before any mixing could occur. Not a likely occcurance

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So my boiler has 1 large black pipe coming out of it with three valves on it. one for 1st floor heat, one for 2nd floor heat and a third for my hot water, which is stored in a tank off my boiler.
I cant see how the water from the heating system doesnt/cant mix with my hot water.

If your boiler is heating your domestic hot water, then there's a heat exchanger involved, most likely a coil in the boiler that the domestic water circulates through. The only time the two can comingle is if the coil springs a leak. If that happens you'll know it immediately, since the higher pressure domestic water will flow into the boiler, causing your pressure relief valve to open, eventually flooding your basement if left unattended.

Actually, as you describe it, it sounds like you have an indirect water heater. That's just a tank with a heat exchanger in it that the boiler water flows through. Same scenario as above--just with the hx in a different place on the loop.

Theoretically, boiler water could enter your domestic water system if the heat exchanger had a leak and your domestic water pressure dropped below that of the boiler. Pretty unlikely, but it could happen. You wouldn't want automotive glycol in there if it did. Torpedo juice wouldn't be so bad, though.

Thanks BB, I'm gonna remember that recipe.....sounds eerily similar to my dad's mixture of lime juice-to-moonshine.Gawd I hate that stuff!

We had to put in a new boiler last year when the cleaning guy came and told us our firebox had disintegrated. He said we were luck it hadn't exploded. Then we found out the previous owner had really screwed up piping (to baseboard heat) with a terrible system design (i.e. single pump to 3 zones, 2 of which were controlled by single thermostat, piping leading nowhere, returns (cold water) running into outgoing (hot water) pipes. Because of the inefficiency, we'd had a few pipes freeze on us 2 winters ago.

Anyways, we put in a new Buderus boiler, elaborate manifold system with a separate pump to each zone, and (I'd guess) 50% new copper piping. Like Elk has, each zone can be isolated from the rest of the system for maintenance without shutting everything down. Our contractor did a pretty slick thing too by giving us the ability to also isolate each pump, so should a critical zone pump fail, we can isolate it, pull it out, and replace it with one of the other 2 pumps (from a less critical zone).

Finally, we did add glycol to the system, since 2 of the 3 zones now get very little use due to the insert that was put in last winter.

TedNH - I was wondering the same thing as you. At some point I want to get rid of my electric water heater and replace with an indirect unit that is heated by the boiler. I could figure out for the life of me how this could be done after adding glycol to the system until someone told me.