Hi all,
I'm new to the forums, but have been reading them for five years or so now. First, a little bit of my history. I bought the house I currently own just about five years ago. I have a six acre wooded lot, and I'd have to say the memories of cutting wood with my dad influenced my home buying mood. The house has an oil furnace, with a DHW coil, an old school "all or nothing" coal/wood furnace with a DHW coil, plus a Whitfield Advantage II pellet stove in the finished basement. Heating is through hot water baseboards, or by the pellet stove's hot air. I should mention I also have six kids, so the wood cutting took a back seat as the younger ones took up a huge chunk of my "free" time. Now that they are older and.......ummm....less demanding of my time, I'm thinking about some things:
First, the coal/wood furnace is what I would call "semi-series" with the return line being controllable through manual ball valves to go directly into the oil burner, or by switching three of these valves, diverting the return to the wood/coal and then going through the oil. I have no problem with that setup if it were only me, but sometimes the wife needs to manage it, and getting behind the furnaces isn't easy, and it can be confusing. On top of that, I can't describe the excessive amount of piping that has no function whatsoever in the system. It seems to me the person that did the piping didn't have a clue and included everything that popped into his head on a just-in-case basis. As an example, the wood/coal supply to the oil return (remember it is series right now) has a tee that theoretically feeds an alternate side loop zone valve (that's never been wired), that goes straight out to the zones without going through the oil furnace. That would be fine if there were two circulator pumps, but there is only one, and there is no way to open/close the ball valves to get the one pump to supply the wood/coal only. Oh, did I forget to mention that there is also a third side loop that swoops around the zone valve (literally a 12" loop) that has nothing but a ball valve in it? If I'm the one that is missing something here, I'd really like to be educated.
Second, I want to make this system parallel and as automated as possible. I want to take the circulator pump, attach it to the single return line (after my three zones converge), then split the return line in two. Each will have a zone valve, and one will be open and one will be closed. The homebrew controls for this are something I can manage. On the supply side, I want to remove all the ridiculous piping and have the oil supply and the wood/coal supply feed into the main supply line and then leave the piping for the zones remain as-is.
Third, I want to automate the DHW in a similar fashion. If I install solenoid valves on each of the CW supplies to the tankless coils and set up the controls so one is open and one is closed, then I can accomplish this. The HW out of the coils is properly set up as parallel now, so If I install the valves on the supply lines, this should be the easy part of the project.
Now that I've given you the background, I guess the only question I have is the concern I have over the parallel system. In the existing system, the oil furnace always stays "warm", even during the warm months. With what I want to do, the oil furnace will hit room temperature when I'm using the wood/coal in the winter. Will this be detrimental to the oil furnace? It took me a long time to get to the question, but I am hoping you folks can tell me if there's anything wrong with any of the background information I provided.
My second question has to do with the Whitfield. As it is in the basement, and heat rises, I want to get that super warm room to share with the rest of the house. My idea of the easiest way to accomplish this would be to cut in a floor register directly over a ceiling register, stick a duct around it, and let physics take it from there. Anything wrong with that appproach? If I'm all wet, and someone tells me so, I'll certainly listen.
That's it for now. I'm glad to be part of the community and hope to help whenever I can. Stay warm.
I'm new to the forums, but have been reading them for five years or so now. First, a little bit of my history. I bought the house I currently own just about five years ago. I have a six acre wooded lot, and I'd have to say the memories of cutting wood with my dad influenced my home buying mood. The house has an oil furnace, with a DHW coil, an old school "all or nothing" coal/wood furnace with a DHW coil, plus a Whitfield Advantage II pellet stove in the finished basement. Heating is through hot water baseboards, or by the pellet stove's hot air. I should mention I also have six kids, so the wood cutting took a back seat as the younger ones took up a huge chunk of my "free" time. Now that they are older and.......ummm....less demanding of my time, I'm thinking about some things:
First, the coal/wood furnace is what I would call "semi-series" with the return line being controllable through manual ball valves to go directly into the oil burner, or by switching three of these valves, diverting the return to the wood/coal and then going through the oil. I have no problem with that setup if it were only me, but sometimes the wife needs to manage it, and getting behind the furnaces isn't easy, and it can be confusing. On top of that, I can't describe the excessive amount of piping that has no function whatsoever in the system. It seems to me the person that did the piping didn't have a clue and included everything that popped into his head on a just-in-case basis. As an example, the wood/coal supply to the oil return (remember it is series right now) has a tee that theoretically feeds an alternate side loop zone valve (that's never been wired), that goes straight out to the zones without going through the oil furnace. That would be fine if there were two circulator pumps, but there is only one, and there is no way to open/close the ball valves to get the one pump to supply the wood/coal only. Oh, did I forget to mention that there is also a third side loop that swoops around the zone valve (literally a 12" loop) that has nothing but a ball valve in it? If I'm the one that is missing something here, I'd really like to be educated.
Second, I want to make this system parallel and as automated as possible. I want to take the circulator pump, attach it to the single return line (after my three zones converge), then split the return line in two. Each will have a zone valve, and one will be open and one will be closed. The homebrew controls for this are something I can manage. On the supply side, I want to remove all the ridiculous piping and have the oil supply and the wood/coal supply feed into the main supply line and then leave the piping for the zones remain as-is.
Third, I want to automate the DHW in a similar fashion. If I install solenoid valves on each of the CW supplies to the tankless coils and set up the controls so one is open and one is closed, then I can accomplish this. The HW out of the coils is properly set up as parallel now, so If I install the valves on the supply lines, this should be the easy part of the project.
Now that I've given you the background, I guess the only question I have is the concern I have over the parallel system. In the existing system, the oil furnace always stays "warm", even during the warm months. With what I want to do, the oil furnace will hit room temperature when I'm using the wood/coal in the winter. Will this be detrimental to the oil furnace? It took me a long time to get to the question, but I am hoping you folks can tell me if there's anything wrong with any of the background information I provided.
My second question has to do with the Whitfield. As it is in the basement, and heat rises, I want to get that super warm room to share with the rest of the house. My idea of the easiest way to accomplish this would be to cut in a floor register directly over a ceiling register, stick a duct around it, and let physics take it from there. Anything wrong with that appproach? If I'm all wet, and someone tells me so, I'll certainly listen.
That's it for now. I'm glad to be part of the community and hope to help whenever I can. Stay warm.
