Passed the Acid Test

[brad068]

Guess that eliminates that stuff. Although my system is totally indoors, and I have really no need for antifreeze protection, my train of thought comes from my automotive frame of reference. Ethylene glycol is more on the line of what I was thinking of using, but that may also cause some deteriorating effects on heating system components. There is a product called "water wetter" using in high performance applications that is supposed to increase water's thermal efficiency for cooling, so on that train of thought, would it work for a boiler? Or am I just wasting time thinking about it? Is it worth the trouble? I'm all for the phrase "keep it simple stupid", and use it regularly, perhaps this is just one of those times it should be used.

I read a report sometime ago on this same topic. It came to the conclusion that a transfer medium with a water glycol mix used 18% more fuel to than straight water. I can't remember the specifics but I do remember it took more fuel to deliver the same amount of btus. I'm trying to find this report.

 

[Bartman]

Eric,
I forgot about the "backflow" issue, it's code here if you have an inground sprinkler system, you have to have a backflow preventer on your public water supply. If you have a well, it's not needed.

It's interesting to see that more fuel is required to heat the glycol equipped system, almost as if it has insulating properties. Just for the record, I'm dropping this subject like a hot potato......... :red:

 

[Gooserider]

I don't know about glycol in heating systems, but a while back I was researching building a liquid cooled computer setup - built a lot of the parts, but never put the system together. There was a great deal of research data presented on everything from viscosity and "pumpability" to heat absorbtion and transfer, essentially how to dump as much heat out of a PC system as possible with minumum noise, and the size of components one could stuff in a PC case....

The conclusion overall was that there really wasn't anything that beat plain distilled water - everything else either didn't work as well or had severe cost and / or toxicity issues, or had other problems. Glycol was definitely worse than water - harder to pump, and less effective as a heat transfer medium. Some folks did swear by "Water Wetter" however, and there was also a need to add various things to inhibit biological growth and possibly prevent corrosion between different metals in the system.

Gooserider