Question about pressurized storage location

[Birdman]

I am still hoping to have pressurized storage soon. I have read posts about how some people have built nice sheds or have a garage with their gasser in it. These garages and sheds also have their storage ( tanks ) in there too. However.. I have also read adn seen people putting their storage in the basement. Pro's and Con's of each?

The reason I ask is I am hoping to also do an attached garage with a Tarm room, space for 4 cord, and all the space for everything else we want.

Should i put the storage in garage? or basement of house?



The tarm is already set up in basement and wood stored there too. This is the second year using the tarm. Have used about 20-30 gallons of oil so far this year as back up. Best purchase I have ever made.

 

[Nofossil]

A few random thoughts:

If storage is inside, then any heat that's lost ends up heating the basement instead of the outdoors.

If storage is near the loads, then you don't have a big slug of cold water from the underground lines every time you turn on a circulator to draw heat from storage.

Bigger is better. It's often nearly impossible to locate large storage indoors.

 

[ewdudley]

I am still hoping to have pressurized storage soon. I have read posts about how some people have built nice sheds or have a garage with their gasser in it. These garages and sheds also have their storage ( tanks ) in there too. However.. I have also read adn seen people putting their storage in the basement. Pro's and Con's of each?

The reason I ask is I am hoping to also do an attached garage with a Tarm room, space for 4 cord, and all the space for everything else we want.

Should i put the storage in garage? or basement of house?

The tarm is already set up in basement and wood stored there too. This is the second year using the tarm. Have used about 20-30 gallons of oil so far this year as back up. Best purchase I have ever made.

For me I added a well-insulated garage-like mechanical room to the northwest corner of the house and chose to put the storage next to the boiler. The downside is that heat loss from the storage causes the mechanical room to be warmer that it needs to be, so there is somewhat more heat lost to the exterior than there would be if the tanks were in the basement. It's on the order of a couple hundred btu per hour, so no big deal. Plus having the mechanical room warmish helps dry the wood that's in there, I suppose.

The overriding factor for me was to provide piping with enough capacity to carry heat away from the boiler at the end of the burn when delta-T through the boiler gets the smallest. I would have had to run 60 feet of at least 1.5" pipe out and back from the boiler with a biggish pump. With the boiler adjacent to the [storage] I'm able to run 2" pipe a few feet with a 007 to do the job. The heat pipes to the house are plenty big at 0.75" because I can guarantee a large delta-T in that circuit.

[These were the factors affecting my decision, either way can be quite workable. It depends on your circumstances.]

--ewd

 

[jimde]

EW, I have a similiar situation with my boiler being installed in my attached garage and my 2 370 gal pressurized tanks direcetly below,but in the basement. I was encouraged by bioheat to install a grundfos 26-99 superbrute for my boiler loop to the tanks. Pipeing is 1 1/4 copper with a distance of less than fffteen feet from the boiler to the tanks. When I asked why I needed such a large high head pump , I was told it was not because of head ,but because of needing to move the solo 60,s BTU output to storage. Does this sound right to you? Are there any other Tarm Solo 60 owners that would chime in on there pumps to storage?

 

[ewdudley]

EW, I have a similiar situation with my boiler being installed in my attached garage and my 2 370 gal pressurized tanks direcetly below,but in the basement. I was encouraged by bioheat to install a grundfos 26-99 superbrute for my boiler loop to the tanks. Pipeing is 1 1/4 copper with a distance of less than fffteen feet from the boiler to the tanks. When I asked why I needed such a large high head pump , I was told it was not because of head ,but because of needing to move the solo 60,s BTU output to storage. Does this sound right to you? Are there any other Tarm Solo 60 owners that would chime in on there pumps to storage?

Sounds like the right idea and in the right ballpark. I always refer back to the Taco "Selecting Circulators" worksheet on the sticky list to nail things down. 1.25" copper can handle 15 gpm comfortably a 4 feet per second, which is good for a solid 150,000 btu / hour at 20F delta-T. Your big pump should well exceed 15 gpm on that short of a run, so your delta-T can go down somewhat and still maintain 150,000 btu / hour. If the 60 in Solo 60 stands for 60 kW then your max capacity is 200,000 btu / hour, which you might well not be able to achieve at the end of the burn when delta-T gets down below 25F or so, but no big deal, the unit just idles a bit and jogs into home plate, it's a home run either way.

--ewd

 

[jimde]

Thanks EW, I find it comforting when opinions are backed up with factual opinions.

 

[sdrobertson]

If you could place the storage in the living space, that is the best as any heat lose goes into the building. If your building a attached garage you could place the storage on the common wall as then some of that lost heat would go into the building through that wall. One thing is that the closer the storage is to the boiler, the less larger (i.e. expensive) diameter piping you'll have as the piping from the storage is usually smaller going to the heat loads.

 

[Hunderliggur]

I have my storage (2x500 gal) in the basement. It keeps the basement warm and dry. My unit is 150K BTU and I run 160 feet of 1 1/4 (80' underground PEX and 80' copper in basement ceiling) with a Taco 011 circulator without problem. The calcs for pipe sizing are straightforward.

 

[WoodNotOil]

I am still hoping to have pressurized storage soon. I have read posts about how some people have built nice sheds or have a garage with their gasser in it. These garages and sheds also have their storage ( tanks ) in there too. However.. I have also read adn seen people putting their storage in the basement. Pro's and Con's of each?

The reason I ask is I am hoping to also do an attached garage with a Tarm room, space for 4 cord, and all the space for everything else we want.

Should i put the storage in garage? or basement of house?



The tarm is already set up in basement and wood stored there too. This is the second year using the tarm. Have used about 20-30 gallons of oil so far this year as back up. Best purchase I have ever made.

In your case the basement is better, but the garage is fine if you can't locate it in the basement. Your lines are not likely to be all that long, so the cold water to zones from storage is not as big an issue. You will lose some heat to whatever space it is located in, but that is minimized as long as it is sufficiently insulated.

 

[webie]

I am still hoping to have pressurized storage soon. I have read posts about how some people have built nice sheds or have a garage with their gasser in it. These garages and sheds also have their storage ( tanks ) in there too. However.. I have also read adn seen people putting their storage in the basement. Pro's and Con's of each?

The reason I ask is I am hoping to also do an attached garage with a Tarm room, space for 4 cord, and all the space for everything else we want.

Should i put the storage in garage? or basement of house?



The tarm is already set up in basement and wood stored there too. This is the second year using the tarm. Have used about 20-30 gallons of oil so far this year as back up. Best purchase I have ever made.

I have a tarm room in the back of my attached garage the room is 6' by 22' What is in the room is 2 gas water heaters that haven't been used in the last 6 years my gas boiler and my solo 60 , plus I have enough room to store about a cord and a half of wood .
I have my unpressurized storage in my basement .
I am wondering if there is a particular reason you want to move the boiler out of the basement ? If I was you I would just put the storage next to the boiler in the basement .
My tarm room even with all my piping insulated is very warm , I actually have built a cold air return using a window fan on low to blow the heat out of this room into my basement , and that's without storage in there .
On the plus side though if I leave the tarm room door open to my garage it does a fair job of heating the garage .
If I didn't run the window fan the temp when I am burning in this room goes into the middle 80's to about 95 . With the fan running now its just a couple of degrees warmer than my basement .
My storage does loose a bit of heat I know that . The tank feels warm on the out side . But I am not sure how much I gain off of the tank for my basement .
I know the boiler and pumps and piping give off quite a bit .
Convenience wise its nice in the back of the garage for the burning of wood , back the trailer right up to the boiler room door and unload a few feet away . I didn't have a choice but to put it there , but where you are all hooked up in the basement I would leave it there and put your storage down there too if you can .
What I am getting at here is unless you have some important reason to move your tarm from your basement I would leave it there and put your storage there too , This will also leave you more room in the garage for more toys like 4 wheelers, snowmobiles ,camper , bass boat , corvette . Its a little hard to store these in the basement .

 

[Rory]

webie, your Tarm experience sounds opposite of mine with my Solo 30. You can put your hand on it when it's going fullbore, and it barely even feels warm. I miss the woodstove I took out of that room, which also has my pool table, and I plan on putting a radiator in there. My unpressurized storage is in another part of the cellar, and, with 4" of foam all around, I don't detect hardly any heat loss there.

 

[webie]

The outside of the tarm just barely feels warm to while its going full bore . I have all the supply pipeing insulated but none of the return pipeing so I am sure there is a bunch of gain there too a long with espcially the exhaust pipe gives off a lot of heat .
The other thing is this room really isnt that big only talking 132 sg ft and of course the 4 outside walls are insulated , no windows and one outside door and 2 inside doors.

 

[4acrefarm]

I plan on putting boiler and storage in an atached greenhouse on the back of the barn. any heat loss would create a heated greenhouse.