gasifier wood consumption

[Eric Johnson]

I just hate to see a fine machine like the EKO 60 not performing up to its potential. In any event, get rid of that heat saver in the stove pipe. They're nothing but trouble.

 

[Nofossil]

I'm attaching my suggestion for plumbing here rather than in the other thread where it would be off-topic.

Mr. Moderator, is there any way to move the post with barnartist's schematic from the other thread to here?

In this schematic, both pumps should be controlled by thermostats so that they're on when there is demand. The Laddomat will put heat into the storage tank if the pumps aren't running, and the pumps will draw from the tank if the Eko isn't running. I left out expansion tank, relief valve, air traps, and so on.

Comments, anyone?

 

[barnartist]

That looks like a pretty easy change. Sorry about the odd post position.
My house loop will always be pumping because of DHW. Thus really no stratification, but still heat stored...?

 

[Nofossil]

That looks like a pretty easy change. Sorry about the odd post position.
My house loop will always be pumping because of DHW. Thus really no stratification, but still heat stored...?

Don't know what your DHW system is, but perhaps you could use a sidearm so that it's heated any time water is circulating, and use the DHW aquastat to force the circulator on if it needs heat. Running the circ all the time doesn't seem like a good plan, especially a big one like you have.

 

[barnartist]

I would need to see how to tell a single pump to run when forced air kicks on, and DHW, and a radiant all in the house. Am I not thinking correctly ?
thats the trouble with storage away from the house.

 

[Nofossil]

I missed that you have radiant in the house - how do you get the water temp down to an acceptable level? You don't want 170 degree water heating your radiant zone, but you do want really hot water for your other loads.

If you used a zone valve for each heat load in the house, you could use the zone valve contacts to control the pump. Plumb all three loads in parallel between the supply and return lines. I'm assuming that the radiant loop has some sort of mixing valve and it's own circulator - maybe I'm wrong.

Zone valves have four terminals: two terminals are for 24vac to open the valve, and the other two are switch contacts that are closed wen the valve opens. Those contacts could be wired in parallel and connected to a 24vac relay that switches power to the circ. That way, if any zone valve was open, the circ would come on.

 

[Bartman]

You can run radiant zones @ 170F as long as they are in concrete, I've been running mine at that temp for 21 yrs without problems and I used polybutylene, before PEX was available. The only problem I had using the higher temps was that the fittings didn't last more than 10 yrs, they were a push & twist type made by Delta, the new style copper crimps work fine. If you have radiant in a wood floor, toss out what I just said, you need tempering valves, temps should not exceed 120F.

 

[barnartist]

I have my radiant mixed. I run it at 150, It is only 1/3 complete, it heats my addition, but mainly a bath. It would work well if competed, I think transfer plates would be better though.

I did not mention the radiant before, did not want to overload you nofossil. I also have in slab radiant in the entire addition, but have given up on it because it was insulated poorly, rather I had bad advice to leave the middle of the floor uninsulated for a bigger "heat sink". I dont have that room finished right now, so its not a top priority. I did run it my first year, heated great, but sucked the btu's.

 

[Bartman]

What insulation do you have? My garage is insulated at the exterior walls only, 2" styrofoam 2' in from wall and 2' down the wall, along the front wall 2", 2' in and 2' down again. The front wall is where the 16' overhead door is. My basement has no insulation. The theory was that the earth under the slab would stabilize in temperature over time, and 2' down the wall and 2' flat to the wall would prevent cold infiltration. Over the years I have been extremely happy with the performance of the radiant in my house, which is only the basement and garage. This installation was primarily an experiment since no one had radiant in my area, and using plastic tubing in concrete was virtually unheard of at that time. When you place insulation under concrete you also run the risk of settlement cracking which I was very wary of at the time.

 

[mtfallsmikey]

Question for barnartist: how did you make your homemade underground lines? I've been kicking that idea around, but the CB lines are really nice. I will have 2 runs, one about 125' the other about 80'.

 

[barnartist]

I did not insulate the edges very well, 1" edges, and I insulated underneath with 1" 4X8
sheets of foam board, but I left the center, about 0 uninsulated. I think this was a mistake because it may stablize, but the heat will be lost into the groud with no real way to come back up.
This slab is about 9' down though, while slabe on grade is really needing the edges done well as you said you did. I should have used 2" foam, and insulated the whole pad.

As for the underground lines, I used scedule 30 sewer pipe, PAP, pex-aluminum-pex lines, and foam
pipe insulation. Problems came when the earth that was dug up was softer than the dirt around it, lots of water accumulated and the seams of some of the sewer pipe let water in. Add to that my run was downhill to the house, and a big rain would let streaming water to my basement where it entered through the block. When I dug it up for replacement, we dug out the middle so water would lay there. I bought the $12 a foot stuff from Central Boiler, wish I had from the beggining. I lost lots of heat in the ground. I have pics of all of this, i'll try and post.

 

[Bartman]

I still think you're okay with your slab installation, around here what you did is standard practice and seems to perform well. It's important to remember that you are no insulating against really cold temps. What are ground temps, 53 degrees? Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[barnartist]

I hope your right Bartman. So most guys are doing it that way then? also, how can you run water at 170, meaning so hot through your floor? does this then make the floor cycle more on and off, rather than a lower temp and a steady pump? Your right, 52 degress, but won't there always be cold to attract the heat, maybe a 20-30% draw?
My cousin has grade slab, and pretty much no perimeter-edge insulation. It reaaaaaally draws power. Not sure how it can really be fixed. Dug out maybe.
Anyone have suggestions?

 

[barnartist]

forgot to add cousin did insulate entire underneath though. Used that black rolled stuff with the different layers.

 

[Bartman]

The slab gets warm, and not too warm, my basement bathroom ceramic tiles are warm, not hot, the rest of the basement is carpeted, I don't think I would like the temp any lower. Remember, plastic doesn't transfer heat like CU, AL or steel, and when you are heating such a large mass like the slab, it' going to take a while to warm and cool. My heat cycles in my basement maybe once a day it's hard to say, I've never relly monitored it. My future plans are to install a PLC to run the boilers/zones/monitor stack temps, maybe I should look into logging data, like monitoring zone run times. As far as your friend is concerned, I would dig out around the foundation's perimeter and drop in 2" insulation down along the wall, you could "stucco" all the exposed insulation above grade to look like concrete or stone.

 

[barnartist]

Bartman, are you happy with how your slab heats as far as efficiancy? How big is it? 5" thick crete?

 

[barnartist]

Heaterman, any comments on my piping layout? I think alot of my ash is from idling all the time.

 

[Bartman]

I love my radiant heat, the efficiency seems good, but it's hard to say about the garage since I have a big heat loss, a 16' overhead door. The concrete was supposed to be 4" thick in both areas. This summer I installed a bathroom in my basement and had to cut the concrete for the drainage and ejector pump sump, I had a hell of a time cutting it out. When I set up for the pour a day earlier I sprained my ankle so I couldn't be everywhere and had to trust the idiot I hired to do the slabs, more on that later. Below the reinforcing wire and heat tubing I laid 4 mil plastic as a vapor barrier for under the concrete. The plastic produced a problem with the concrete setting up because we poured in March and the concrete had to have calcim chloride added to help it harden, I was not happy about that. Needless to say, we had to poke holes in the plastic to get the water to drain from the mix. As I was chopping out my concrete 21 yrs later, I found 4" above the plastic and 2" below the plastic with the tubing 2" below the surface, (at least that went as planned). Undoubtedly the 6" total thickness is not consistant through my basement slab, but it's pretty thick considering that most basement slabs are about 2" thick, around here anyway. My garage is 19x20 and has a trench dug across the middle in each direction in the shape of a cross dividing the slab in 4. Although the slab is poured as one, the "haunch" that runs across in both directions adds another 8" depth about 18" wide for reinforcement.

 

[rsnider]

i always thought that you could run hotter water into the slab. i was told only 120 to 150 or the concrete would break up from the heat. i still installed a mixing valve to be safe. at 120 my brother in laws basement works like a dream and since insulating basement walls maybe kicks on once a day for 3 to 4 minutes at really cold outside temps. i learned allot from installing his radiant and did do some things different. i posted before but will post again radiantdesigninstitute.com is a great info site to use for all sorts of projects. i did my new house radiant using most of the ideas on setons website and makes allot of sense to me. most of radiant are just ideas and who knows what is the best way to do it.

 

[barnartist]

I agree Rider, I was told that too, but if a guy has been doing it that long has to be OK. I have cracks in my floor, dont know if they would have happened anyway, but I ran pretty hot for a while before I got a mixing valve.
So yours (brothers)kicks on once a day you think? Sounds good. Any way you know or could find out what kind of return temp you get out of the floor? It would be great to know the return (water temp coming out of the floor) when the pump first kkicks on, and again the temp when the slab is charged. Id like to compare it with my cousins- he is always cold return.

Anyone know a good place to find a contact temp gauge reasonable?

 

[rsnider]

barnartist ill check it out tonight and let you know the temps. i see your sign on 70 all the time nice. checked out your site looks good. i live key ridge off of st rt 147 toward bellaire oh.

ryan

 

[barnartist]

Ryan, went to the link you provided and it looks like my floor is crap. Im pretty much losing a ton in the ground. My fault really. I will need to either poor another floor one day or find an alternate way to heat it. Maybe baseboards.

 

[rsnider]

i dont think it is crap just works different in that you heat the ground and when the power goes out you have stored some heat in the ground for the floor. i would try to insulated around the outside of the foundation or slab if you could and insulate the walls if its a basement or garage if not already done. it should still work your just dumping heat in ground for later use. that is the thought that ive read on the net.

 

[Bartman]

In the past I have done a few radiant jobs, each one a little different. In a wood floor I would never go above 120F, concrete takes a lot longer, I can't see how a radiant basement zone could run for a couple of minutes unless it's on a timer. To warm a slab that zone has to run for a long time, and then after that you have to satisfy the thermostat. My floor has no more cracks in it than normal, I can't see under the carpeting but the shop area is fine, no cracks. When I ran the basement loops I did 2, 1 loop on the north side of the columns, 1 loop on the south side. The loops are 1/2" polybutylene spaced 18" apart. The garage has 1 loop, starts out across the garage door (south wall), then travels along the exterior (east wall), then returns toward the south wall and goes across the door again, then returns back to the same path. Along the outer walls the tubing spacing is 6", this spacing is accomplished 3 times, then the spacing goes to 12", then 18", then 24" is the final spacing at the inside corner of the garage. The garage has a few cracks in the concrete but I attribute that to that same idiot that did my slabs. The garage and basement were to have 4000lb mix, and I was told yhat's what I received, until I spoke to the ready mix driver. The driver told me he delivered 2000lb mix for the garage, and 3000lb for the basement. When I installed the system I worried about cracking, but the garage cracking started before I ever had the heat operational.

 

[Bartman]

Ryan,
Could you send me the link you guys are talking about? I need to be enlightened.