Remote storage tank (furnace not in same building as tank)

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cjdave

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Jan 19, 2011
40
Pottstown, Pa
I am working on planing out a system and trying to work out the logistics of component placement. So here is what I have planned. I have 3 buildings I want to heat, 2 houses and shop. I have a 4th building where I want to put the boiler (from my heat loss calculations I am looking at a eko 80 or biomass 80). The problem Is I have more room in the houses than in the building that will be the boiler room. Can someone tell me if I am crazy to think about putting storage tanks in both houses and nothing or a smaller one by the boiler? I am thinking I need about 1500-2000 gal of water storage with the 80. So is this a bad idea or should it work?
I have been doing a ton of research on here and haven't seen anyone do it this way.
Thanks
 
Lots of people have in basement storage and boiler in an outbuilding. I have 1000 gallons (2x500) in the basement and my boiler is 80 feet from house in its own shed (12x16). I have not heard of two seperate storage areas,the control logic could be interesting. Why don't you make a drawing of what you are think of and you will surely get some advice ;-)
 
I asked almost the same question once but was told to try and have the storage in the same area but the boiler doesn't have to be. Maybe that has changed since then :)
 
I think that storage in the building and the boiler nearest the wood supply is the best of both worlds: You're not lugging wood into the house and your storage losses go towards heating your structure. The only time this may be a disadvantage is during the Summer if you were trying to heat hot water, in which case I would have a sepreate tank just for that so I'm not heating a large mass.

Do both buildings have the same heat loss (within reason)? A hydro-seperator would work well in this case, having a smaller (100 gallon?) tank near the boiler and then draw your storage supply from that. It would keep the multiple pumps you're going to need from cavitating or fighting against each other. I think its definately doable.
 
this isn't the same thing, but we have a pool in a 1,200 sq ft section of the house. 12,000 gals. This room also has in-floor concrete heat. My point is we don't use the floor heat much because the pool keeps the room very even. warmest room in the house. The big flywheel. Any way a storage tank in every building, I think isn't a bad idea. If I could split up my storage, so each building could have some, I would.
 
btuser said:
I think that storage in the building and the boiler nearest the wood supply is the best of both worlds: You're not lugging wood into the house and your storage losses go towards heating your structure. The only time this may be a disadvantage is during the Summer if you were trying to heat hot water, in which case I would have a sepreate tank just for that so I'm not heating a large mass.

Do both buildings have the same heat loss (within reason)? A hydro-seperator would work well in this case, having a smaller (100 gallon?) tank near the boiler and then draw your storage supply from that. It would keep the multiple pumps you're going to need from cavitating or fighting against each other. I think its definately doable.
Click to expand...
the 2 houses have pretty different heat losses. The big house is probably 2 times the heat loss of the small house. Just to give some more info, the "boiler room" is between the 2 houses, but the big house is about 200' from the boiler and the small house is about 100' from the boiler. I could put all the storage in the big house as I have a ton of room in the basement, but it might be hard to get the tanks in there. I was planing on using the 500 gal propane tanks, but I don't know if it will fit down the stairs.
I guess i never really thought about how to split the output to get both storage tanks up to temp with them in different houses. Just seems wrong to me to pump water up to the big house for storage and then pump all the way back past the boiler to the small house.
I guess I could put one 500 gal tank in the boiler room (boiler room is in a insulated garage and will be walled off from the rest of the building.) and 1000 gal in the big house.
As this is my first attempt at this type of heat system I just want to explore all the options and do it right the first time.
Thanks
Dave
 
What ever you do with the storage locations, Dave, try to research to death all the info on this forum about underground piping for distribution of the heat. There's a 'sticky' post near the top of the Boiler Room main page that has a lot in it.

Determine the largest pipe size you can afford and use the next larger size. And then insulate it to the point of absurdity. Stay away from bubble wrap and polyfoam sheeting.

I think by minimizing heat distribution losses, the exact location of the storage tanks is less important and more easily decided by your own convenience.
 
Yes I actually had planned on doing a foam in trench just like the pictures I found in that thread before I found this site, actually I found this site looking around online to see if anyone had done the foam in trench method before! I figured there is no such thing as too much in ground insulation.

SO the more I think about this, assuming the furnace is putting out more btu than just one of the storage tanks can store, I am thinking just a temp controlled zone valve on both tanks and which ever one reaches the preset temp first would shut off putting the remaining btu from the furnace into the second tank in the other house. The only time I see this as a problem would be if the boiler can't put out enough btu to the whole system and the system shuts down before the 2nd tank is fully charged.
 
I have been using a wood boiler in my finished barn teamed with a 250 g tank. When the boiler is running, a circulator starts and charges a 500 gallon tank in the house. I Have been using this setup for a number of years and am well satisfied. See the layout at this Link whenever my system web page it up.

The 250 g tank by the boiler gets charged last because I have the loop circulator moving the heat into the house 500g tank as long as the boiler water is hotter than the tank, once the 500g tank reaches the boiler output temp it shuts down and the remaining heat goes into the 250 g tank.
 
Should be no problem. You'll just have a small "manifold" by your boiler with a zone going to each building. I would probably set up each structure with a primary loop and the storage and boiler as secondaries feeding it. Your heat would come from the primary loop not directly from the boiler or storage. You can then use aquastats or a more sophisticated control to determine where the heat from the boiler goes. Look over the "sticky" at the top of the page that says primary secondary piping to get a feel for what I'm talking about.
 
I am planning a split system myself. Boiler in greenhouse with 500 tank and 500 tank in the house. I would use the house tank as the primary(top) and the greenhouse tank as secondary ( bottom) as in the simplest pressurized sticky with two tanks.
 
Multiple tanks would not be a problem. You will always have distribution loss through underground piping.

Consider using a solar differenital control with 3 or more outputs. The control allows you to chose from a number of loading schemes.
Spreaded loading where tank 1 reaches setpoint , then additional tanks load
Successive loading, or parallel loading.

Also you can chose priority, and oscillating where the tank with the lowest temperature load, to keep the collector array, or the boiler, running at it's most efficient condition that being the coldest return temperature.

So depending on the requirements of every building, the control maximizes the boiler output. If one home has a big DHW load, and the temperature is 120F, that would be a more efficient load to cover, before you switch to higher temperature loads. The control is always looking out for your best thermal interest :)

hr
 
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