Storage location--two competing concerns

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horrocksd

Member
Mar 2, 2010
42
Finger lakes, NY
I've read all the posts I could find here about where to locate thermal storage. On the one hand I've read a number of reasons why it should be located as close to the boiler as possible. On the other hand, it should be located within the structure being heated so that any heat loss goes into that structure. My problem is that my Econoburn 150 is going to be located in my barn, 100' from my house. I don't really have an option to put the boiler in the basement as it's just a 52" high crawl space, but I could fit the thermal storage in the basement. If I put the storage close to the boiler any lost heat just goes into the barn. If I locate it in the house I'm 100' from the boiler. So I have two questions:

1. Is there any factor in this equation that weights more heavily than the other--near the boiler or in the house being heated?

2. If I put my storage in the basement, 100' from the boiler in my barn, will I need to run separate lines to the storage or can I just tee off of the pex I'm running to the house for the heating loops?

As always, thanks for all the comments and help. This is a great forum.

-David H.
 
nofossil said:
As far as I'm concerned, the best place for storage would be as close to the load(s) as possible. A single set of lines should be fine, and I'd put storage in your basement.

Agreed. Since you will use the storage down to a lower temp, it is to your advantage to have less distance (where heat can be lost) to travel. Ideally both would be close to the load, so this is a good compromise.
 
My boiler is 80 feet from the house and another 80 feet farther in the basement from where the PEX enters the house for a total of 160 feet. I use 1 1/4 PEX underground and 1 1/4 copper in the basement with a 150KBTU boiler. Works fine with minimal line loss. Put some Ts and valves in the barn so you can pull a loop off for heating something in the barn at a later date. Much easir to put them in when the line are dry.
 
By putting the storage in your basement, at times of no fire you will have less heat loss. If the storage were in the barn, evertime there is a demand, hot water must travel(circulate) the whole distance between the house and barn. With the storage in the basement, loads can be satisfied quickly without warming up your underground lines. Make sure to use adequate tube size underground and properly sized circulator so as to easily move the heat. Two lines Supply/Return out to the storage is all you need.
 
nofossil said:
As far as I'm concerned, the best place for storage would be as close to the load(s) as possible. A single set of lines should be fine, and I'd put storage in your basement.

What he said
 
Horrock - I am just now reading this post and wondering how it worked out for you? Did you put storage in the basement? Did you just include the storage in the loop, so the loop goes from boiler, to storage to house units and then back to boiler? I am asking because this year I installed an econoburn 200 without storage this year and contemplating adding storage for next season. THANKS.
 
WRboiler said:
By putting the storage in your basement, at times of no fire you will have less heat loss. If the storage were in the barn, evertime there is a demand, hot water must travel(circulate) the whole distance between the house and barn. With the storage in the basement, loads can be satisfied quickly without warming up your underground lines. Make sure to use adequate tube size underground and properly sized circulator so as to easily move the heat. Two lines Supply/Return out to the storage is all you need.

This is what i done.

just figured out this was an old post. So...yeah...What'd you do?
 
My house has a crawl instead of a basement so my storage is next to my boiler in my out building.

Since I have a boiler control connected to storage tank,the temperature of the water(usually less than 120*) that I transfer to the house is much lower than if I had my storage closer to the load.This has proved to be a very substantial savings in my heat storage compared to last year when I had no control and would transfer whatever temp was in the tank at the time.By providing the load with temps that are needed instead of what is available there is little stand-by losses .There can be a strategy for any option.
 
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