upgrading current setup is it worth it?

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prollynotjeff

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Jan 23, 2011
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twin tiers ny
I recently purchased a home with a CB OWB and noticed this spring where the lines were ran the snow melted first. I know everyone is thinking to tear it out and put in a gassy with correct lines but its not in the budget next big purchase is a tractor.
With that being said here is the current setup
35ft run from the boiler to the house burried 20ish inches inside 8inch pipe wrapped in foam(CB sold this with their units in mid 2000s)

Once it comes into the house is runs to the LP boiler and then the full length of the house, goes outside again(20inches deep) to the garage and runs up to a forced air unit. From the garage floor to the forced air unit it is about 10ft and that pex is also bare.

It then returns the same way.

Inside the house and in the garage it is bare 1 1/8 pex

I was planning on insulating the exposed lines in the basment and garage, is it worth it to dig up the lines and add some sort of insulation? few inches of spray foam?

This project would be a limited budget and once this boiler died I would start from scratch.

additional info
3250sf log cabin(propane backup)
1200sf garage
10 acres of thick woods around the house an additional 100acres 4 miles away

Ideas? questions? Sorry for the long post but thanks ahead of time as im sure your suggestions will help me with my decision.
 
It would be useful to measure the temperature drop across the buried lines. What is the temp into the underground and then exiting the underground? You need to use the same (or accurate) thermometers and measure the same way. Insulation slows heat loss but does not prevent it. At 20" you will see the surface warm up and the snow will melt there first. Unless you have a very large drop I would not bother. On the other hand, insulating the exposed pipes well will make a huge difference (unless you were counting on them to heat the area). I have an 80 foot run of 1 1/4 copper (160 feet round trip) in my basement and before I insulated I had a very warm basement! I looked up the heat loss table and it was something like 50K BTU/H for that run at ~160F. Between insulating the exposed pipes and caulking/insulating the house, you will probably get a better payback unless your buried line loss is extremely high.
 
I measured the drop a few months back and can’t seem to find the paper. I do remember it was a 2degree drop from the boiler to just inside the basement. For temperature measurement I used a Milwaukee IR gun and shot a fitting on the outside of the wood boiler and just inside the house. Both were the same style fitting. I see some people are using reflectix type materials while others use fiberglass pipe insulations. What one did you choose? I was planning to use fiberglass.

If there is a better way to measure temp let me know I will try that.
 
I am going to take a guess, but if you have say a pump that supplies 15gpm, and you are loosing 2 degrees, for the run from the OWB to the house, that tells me you are loosing (X)BTU/hr=gpm X 500 X delta T so 15gpm X 500 X 2= 15,000BTU/hr you are loosing. The question would be is your underground line not under insulated, but is it waterlogged? I am not an OWB guy, so I dont know if this is a standard temp drop or not? Milwakee makes some nice tools, but you might want to look at the specs on the IR temp becuase you may have more error in the IR gun than you actually have in the pipes, just due to external influences, like the sun outside vs a dark basement when you are shooting the pipes. The only sure fire way to calculate it correctly is by having temp probes in the water flow, or a highly insulated metal pipe with a strap on probe.
I think the answer regardless of the situation is the lines inside regardless of what you do outside should be insulated, unless you are trying to heat the basement, but I dont see that being a efficient way of doing it. The garage lines should definetly be insulated to stop any standby losses.
 
I personally would tear up the driveway and put those lines that melt the snow under it in a zigzag pattern. :)
 
I could get some stick on contact couples and attach one at each of the fittings described and insulate to try and get better numbers. I can’t see taking the time on this setup to get in line couples. What would be the best way to check for water logging? I read about that and have felt around where it comes in the basement and it feels dry but I can only feel about a foot up. I assume I would need to dig the lines up.
 
I think you are lot like me, you have an inclination to change something because you didnt do it yourself, so there is a feeling that it could be done better. If the lines are 35ft and they are dry, any bit of time and effort you put into digging it up and re-insulating you probably arent going to see a $$ benefit out of it.

On the insulation note for indoor. R-value per inch, rubber/foam type insulation has a higher R value that fiberglass. Fiberglass is for high temp applications of 200F+, like directly out of the boiler or steam applications. So indoors I am sure you are well below that, and with PEX the flexible insulation is easier to use than fiberglass too.
 
I'm presuming you read the underground sticky. My first season I had huge underground losses, to the point I thot I had undersized the boiler. When you say recently purchased, does that mean you've lived with boiler one whole winter season? I ask because when you are new to a home and property I'm typically juggling so many balls you gotta kill the essentials first. What you have is something that's working and you know it can be improved. If you're like me you either have time or money (later in life you may end up having both). If I was short of money and had time, I'd get extra wood, insulate better were I could and next winter get a better handle on how bad your underground is. If you have a little money and some time, install 1 1/4" pex and foam in the trench to reduce how much time you waste fetching wood. I drive a Big, diesel guzzling truck. But it's still cheaper to spend an extra $100/month on fuel than buying a $30,000 energy efficient car. That's where you are today. I'd insulate what I could and throw fuel at it until you get thru one winter to upgrade in stages. Same for the boiler. Get the underground and other systems right then 2 years from now get the latest, carbo-nuclear unification boiler.

BTW, our round trip is about 450' and I saw last winter while our boiler was idling a 1 deg delta (1.5F was more typical) between leaving the boiler barn and returning. Never saw any sign of snow melt over our lines. I'd throw wood at it for one year to get my feet planted.
 
You are correct I have not lived here for a full winter yet. I moved in early Feb. and the previous owner had left me with no wood at all. I am still burning (till the weekend is the plan) but have 7 full cord C/S/S in my shed (about a cord chunked in the woods) for next year and am still cutting. Money wouldn’t bother me so much but when I purchase the latest and greatest I would like to move it away from my house closer to my wood storage. I can see that being awhile since this boiler is only 5 years old.

Tennman I am lucky since this house is less than 10 years old I don’t have much to work on right now. Plans are to stain the garage, improve the yard and driveway.


So far it sounds like rubber insulation for the interior and garage ( would I gain any benefit from reflectix? I see it pretty cheap in farmtek)

Leave the exterior lines since theirs no cheap way to improve them.
 
Tennman said:
I'm presuming you read the underground sticky. My first season I had huge underground losses, to the point I thot I had undersized the boiler. When you say recently purchased, does that mean you've lived with boiler one whole winter season? I ask because when you are new to a home and property I'm typically juggling so many balls you gotta kill the essentials first. What you have is something that's working and you know it can be improved. If you're like me you either have time or money (later in life you may end up having both). If I was short of money and had time, I'd get extra wood, insulate better were I could and next winter get a better handle on how bad your underground is. If you have a little money and some time, install 1 1/4" pex and foam in the trench to reduce how much time you waste fetching wood. I drive a Big, diesel guzzling truck. But it's still cheaper to spend an extra $100/month on fuel than buying a $30,000 energy efficient car. That's where you are today. I'd insulate what I could and throw fuel at it until you get thru one winter to upgrade in stages. Same for the boiler. Get the underground and other systems right then 2 years from now get the latest, carbo-nuclear unification boiler.

BTW, our round trip is about 450' and I saw last winter while our boiler was idling a 1 deg delta (1.5F was more typical) between leaving the boiler barn and returning. Never saw any sign of snow melt over our lines. I'd throw wood at it for one year to get my feet planted.
Click to expand...


Very, very good advise. The year I built my house I had so many things coming at me, that by the end even small problems seemed overwelming. A year later all my little troubles that seemed so overwelming at the time were much more managable. Anyway, you are heating a fairly large area, how much wood did you use? What temps did you keep things at and I forgot to look what your climate is. 35' is not a very long run and if you plan on heating with a boiler of some type and you know for sure where the boiler is going to be, I would swap out the lines and foam in some 1.25 ones.
 
Since I Had no wood cut and it was pretty hectic moving in during all the snow this year, I didn’t keep track of the wood. I was just cutting it and feeding it in full rounds. I had 6pallets full about 4ft high 3 times but it was never split and stacked neatly. I don’t want to add new larger lines because when I change boilers I will be changing the location. I just figured if their was an less expensive easy way to upgrade the existing setup I would. I am 26 so I am still in my strong back weak mind years ha-ha.
 
My Ace hardware had 1 1/4! Must be for their spa line. Web pricing can work - the stuff is light so shipping will not eat up the savings. I used foil face fiberglass duct insulation because of where my pipe ran in the basement ceiling- easier and cheaper than the foam.
 
To figure out how much heat you're losing in the underground run you need to know the gallons per minute and FOUR temperatures, each end of each pipe, to determine how much heat is lost from the supply, minus how much is GAINED by the return, equals how much is lost to the ground. The heat loss from the supply to the return inside of the pipe is not wasted.

The heat lost from the bare pipes in the garage or the basement isn't wasted if you're heating both areas anyway. Ever seen a cast iron radiator with the pipes insulated from the floor to the radiator? Pure nonsense. The exception is if the system is plumbed in series with constant circulation and you don't want those areas as warm as they are.
 
Both the basment and garage are warmer than they need to be and have their own zones. Heck the pipes running through the basment keep it at 70 and that heater has never kicked on in my 3 months living here. My OWB is constant cirrculation, is their another option?
 
OWBs are sometimes plumbed in series, one circulator pumps water through the hot air coil, then through the DHW heat exchanger, then through the garage unit heater and then back outside to the boiler, not ideal but it works.

If your garage and basement stay significantly warmer than you want even with the thermostats turned off, then you will benefit from adding a better control system and/or adding some pipe insulation until you reach the point that the temp doesn't rise above what you want it to be.
 
That is how my boiler is setup, it goes to my indoor boiler(side arm DHW) and then out to the garage. I plan on insulating the pipes since we only use the basement for storage right now and I only heat the garage when I plan on working out there. Could I get the name of these control systems, I would like to do some reading incase I find down the road I need to change my setup.
 
If ya don't want to spend much money you can lay snow over it and that insulates very well.. I do it every year. I used to push snow against my house and could notice it was a bit warmer in the basement. I'm sure snow would insulate it enough to make it worth your time. Maybe even lay some foam on the ground and then throw snow on the foam. Just a thought.
 
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