new to forum and boilers

[vogey]

I'm not sure if this is the right forum, as I have a boiler but its gas...

Any way I figured I'd introduce myself and the situation I'm in lol. I have no heat and its Nov in Minnesota, starting from scratch basically on a complete diy boiler/radiator install (home sat vacant few years boiler sat underwater looks like Titanic and to top it off all the baseboard heaters but one were stolen) I bought a used slant fin 120000/101000 btu gas boiler (20 yr old natural gas need to convert to propane) to replace the 88000 btu boiler currently in the basement. I got lucky the neighbor switched to forced air n sold me all his CI baseboards for $50 and am picking up 9 CI radiators for $30 tom. I was given a few hundred feet of 1/2" pex tubing. Once I get the radiators home and a pex crimping tool I will be figuring out what's going were and im sure asking a lot of questions (such as what is this out door reset I keep hearing about, and is it a bad ideah to use all the ci bb and CI rads in one house being its pretty much two homes worth...) And sorry about my grammer I know its horrible

 

[Karl_northwind]

Start Here: http://www.caleffi.com/usa/en-us/technical-magazine
Read them all. start with #12. then go back thru them in whatever order you like. you will then be able to come back with more specific questions.
my advice: don't get to crazy on zoning, run a zone or 2 or 3 with circulators, and a primary loop with a secondary thru the boiler (slant fin is a high Pressure drop boiler, read: high resistance to flow) if you're planning on going wood boiler you're in the right place.

 

[maple1]

That's a great deal on rads - and they heat like crazy.

I think you should be using oxygen barrier pex also - so should verify the stuff you have fits the application.

 

[vogey]

I was thinking 4 zones or loops 2 on each floor (though running a second one upstairs might be pia) one loop for rads and one loop for bb on each floor 9 rads will be enough to put one in each room and I almost had enough bb btu wise to do house already enough for 1st floor and little light on 2nd. And thanx Karl looks like good reading! I assume the pex is correct as it says on package for baseboards ect

 

[vogey]

I do plan on doing an additional wood pellet boiler later on (read I can take old boiler apart and build a wood boiler out of on another forum awhile back, I'm in school for fab and welding so I think I could get something to work. But first things first I want to get heat working lol then I'll fiddle with things later

 

[vogey]

Sorry all just hadda come on n brag about my score! The radiators came out of an old bank built in 1900 easily 4 times the size of my home with 12' ceilings and the biggest radiators I've ever seen! They have Minnesota something on them and weigh in 300-600lbs each range only could get the smallest 6... Last three were 2 big to attempt (one is 10-12' long... Really wanted it but were to put it lol) so I'm in a conundrum... Got 5 giant rads and one normalish big one for downstairs cause I'm never going near stairs with them again!! And lots of CI bb for upstairs easily enough to go wall to wall all way around up there. (Will it hurt to go overkill on rads? I figured the more I have the lower I can set temp on boiler and more efficient it will be?)

 

[maple1]

I can't think of a downside to rad overkill. One thing to keep in mind is that with big zones, the rooms & rads on the ends will get less heat than the rooms & rads at the start of the zone. That can be helped some with fin baseboard - you could close & open shutters some aroundthe zone to help balance the heat flow room to room. Maybe more radiation towards the ends of the zones, less up front?

 

[vogey]

I will try to get some pics of these beasts up. They are massive! 4 are 5 columns thick ( lil under a foot) 3-4' tall and 20-24 fins wide (4'). It wouldn't be very difficult to split the down stairs up in to 2 zones with three rads each as boiler is smack dab center of house, being that upstairs is going to be all CI bb I'm just gonna leave it as one zone its worked that way for 95 years... On a side note the CI bb I have some were pulled apart because they are 20' long how do u make sure the push nipples seal back up?

 

[Karl_northwind]

better plan on some serious reset do drop the temperatures on those when it's not really cold out. I just re-did a new boiler instal; (someone else did the install) and they left the new Mod-con boiler at 190F, and the huge cast iron radiators would try to hit 190, and cook the house out. added the outdoor sensor and set the boiler to run between 90F (50 F outside) and 140 F (at -20) and they should be good. you probably can't run that slant fin down below 140F though, as I think it's a non-condensing unit. keep the boiler set at 150-160 and use a couple mixing valves to adjust your water temperature to the emitters. I would think about a tekmar or caleffi floating action mixing valve, 3 or 4 way. this will serve you well should you go wood or pellet boiler in the future as they'll deliver water in those same temperatures.

k

 

[vogey]

Well I did the calc for what the home needs for BTUs fibin on it sayin there was an un insulated roof above all the rooms instead of heated rooms or insulated attic space says I need 90000 and doin it right says I need 60000 the new boiler says 120000/10100 so should be good to go at 35000 (high number for upstairs) I figure I need 60' of CI bb at 600 but per ft witch I have and then some but really I only need 24000 (even less cause I addin 4" of insulation on inside walls and next summer we putting corrugated steel over 4" of foam on house and roof) I'm lookin to heat/cool my home for as little as possible.