Circulator position and control

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timberbuilt

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Oct 10, 2009
42
Montana
I recently purchased a Wood Gun and am in the process of getting ready to plumb it in. The boiler is placed in an outbuilding 100' from the house. I am planning on using a Taco 011 for the main circulater with Taco 007s for zone circulaters. The zone circulaters will be controlled with a zone control box attached to thermostats. So to get to my immediate question (I'm sure to have many, many more): How, what do I use to control the 011? Do I need an aqua-stat somewhere in the system? I am planning on placing the 011 in the outbuilding on the supply side, opinions?

Any opinions, advice, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
It would help to provide a proposed plumbing schematic if you can - a cell phone pic of a sketch on a napkin is better than nothing. Are you thinking of having storage?

You might also want to spend a couple of minutes looking at the schematics posted in stickies in this forum to see if they make sense to you.
 
I am not totally familiar with the wood gun , but this should not make much difference . Use a aquastat in a dwell in the boiler to trigger your taco 011 on when the water temp reaches a certain user adjustable set point . Mine on my tarm I have set at 170 . My aquastat has a 5 degree differential and the circ turns back off when boiler temps drop to about 165 .
Now you want your pump on the cool return side of your boiler .
 
Webie,

Good reply. That is exactly the piece of information I was missing. Are there any other places where an aqua-stat would be needed, suggested in the system?
 
timberbuilt said:
Webie,

Good reply. That is exactly the piece of information I was missing. Are there any other places where an aqua-stat would be needed, suggested in the system?
Click to expand...

It would be best if you describe how you are planning on setting up your system . Are you planning storage ? If not are you planning a boiler loop from your boiler to the house and back ? Not sure what a wood gun uses but if it doesn't have an overheat control you will need another aquastat for that so as to trip a dump zone in case your boiler over heats . I use another aquastat on my storage tank so when it drops to a certain temp it automatically connects my gas back up boiler so if it is calling for heat it can run .
 
Assuming you will use some kind of thermal protection mixing valve (you should), you will not be pumping away from the boiler, but instead be pulling through the mixing valve and pumping TOWARDS the wood boiler with your 0011. Spend some time with the drawings available in the stickies and elsewhere, there is a lot to know and many ways to do this wrong.
 
timber, they are the first five or so posts at the first page of The Boiler Room forum. They always stay in that position so are referred to as "sticky". They also have a yellow "Post-It" logo next to them instead of the normal file folder icon. These are a great resource for the most frequently asked questions and answers about wood boilers. Think of it as a kind of library for all the stuff you need to know about before you put in a wood boiler. Needless to say, a very valuable resource. Happy reading!
 
Circulators should push into your load. Some times that's cold water or mixed, boiler side. And they also push hot water into load at the zone end. Take a look at the "Primary / Secondary" sticky. That is a nice set up and allows for different flow rates for remote boilers and different velocity pumps.
Rob
 
Yes RobC, zone circs should push into the load, however, boiler pumps - when used with a Termovar type mixing valve at the back of the wood boiler - should pump towards the wood boiler, not the zones. This allows the pump to pull through both the hot and cool (zone return) side of the mixing valve. The first and second drawings on the "Primary/Secondary" sticky show this well.
 
Did he actually figure out the head and gpm that it says that he needs a 011 or not? That's what I'm asking. He may get by with a 009 or some other size that's all. I have a 009 on mine and it's close to 100 ft from my house and it works fine. The main thing is is it sized correct.
 
Ok, you guys asked for it so here is my attempt at posting a pic of my plumbing schematic. If it doesn't work I may need guidance on how to do it. The reason I used the 011 was twofold, the salesman suggested it and it seemed to make good sense as Bio Heat Guy suggested with the length from the house and friction loss in the 1" pipe. I would like to spend more time calculating and planning ahead but I am also in the process of building (with a deadline looming) so this is not the only problem I have to figure out at the moment, therefore I may be at the mercy of a salesman or two.



Please give me your feedback.

Thanks guys.
 

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More questions:

Should I have a mixing valve where my boiler bypass comes back to my return?

The original question of control for the 011, I think I understand that I need a aquastat in a dwell in the boiler or perhaps in the supply line just out of the boier? Then wired with a relay of some sort to the 011?

Suggested optimal tempertures for the system, coming out of the boiler, going out to the infloor zones, coming back to the boiler...

Do I need more pressure relief valves within the system?

Can the fill valve be anywhere? Most of the other diagrams I looked at always had the fill valve between the pressure tank and air purge.

Thanks again guys,
 
Your 011 needs to be after your expansion tank and air purge combo. This is called pumping away. You don't need any other relief valves except the one on the boiler. The way you have the 011 now would cause you to have problems with the boiler getting too much pressure in it. You also need the bypass line on the supply side of the circulator. It looks like you're just using a simple ball valve to temper the return water.
 
tbsdolmar said:
Your 011 needs to be after your expansion tank and air purge combo. This is called pumping away. You don't need any other relief valves except the one on the boiler. The way you have the 011 now would cause you to have problems with the boiler getting too much pressure in it. You also need the bypass line on the supply side of the circulator. It looks like you're just using a simple ball valve to temper the return water.
Click to expand...

Thanks tbs. All very good information and I shall adjust accordingly.

Is there any reason I need mixing valves on all three of my infloor zones or could I just use 1 mixing valve going into all three?

On a side note, the wife is concerned about the looming deadline and called in a plumber for a bid on the manifold construction! I'm still planning on doing it myself but I may be about to get fired from my own job...
 
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