Rookie Too Hot too Cold

[mhearts]

What size piping do you have running between the Tarm and the oil burner?

 

[MrEd]

Let me know if I understand this then. In your design you have EITHER one or the other to use. In your setup you have to manually open valves to use the oil boiler OR to use the Tarm. In your design the oil can never " kick on " automatically to heat your house. Is that correct? If so... I guess i could do this as long as I don't have any lapses in my attending the Tarm... and I am able to judge the type of fire i need before leaving the house for the day. What if i judge wrong? If the oil boiler is valved off does this mean that teh electricity is still powered on for the oil boiler as mine has contols on it for the thermostats? This reply is to Mr. Ed's last post.

Yes, my oil can never "kick on", I don't want it to, but its available if I need it. Technically I could leave all my valves open and let the oil burner "kick on" when needed, once I put in all the appropriate wiring. Nothing in my plumbing setup would need to change to do that. I actually only put those valves in so that I could do the work on the system - now that they are in, I figure I might as well leave them closed since I don't plan on ever using the oil burner - in fact I'd like to swap it out for a propane one as a backup.

I am home 99% of the time, so its perhaps a better solution for me than you. If the house is cold, I build a fire. If I was routinely away for the day, and had -10 or -20 degree days, I might prefer to have the oil burner always on stand-by.

Maybe do a quick, and inexpensive fix for this winter, and spend the winter planning on what mod's you might need (and save up $$$ if you need to) and next spring summer get your storage and whatever other changes done all at once.

 

[WoodNotOil]

One other thing I just thought of you can try is if you have isolation valves for each zone you could try closing them about half way (on the end that doesn't have hte pump) to try and throttle back the flow rate on the zones a little. It won't do much but it may let more heat from the Tarm through. Is there any way to turn some thermostats down so certain zones won't run often? Also, I was rereading one of your earlier posts and noticed you said the living room circ was bigger than the others. That could have a lot to do with it. Why was it sized so large? If possible, replace it with a 007 so that all zones are smaller pumps and put the big one on the Tarm to really get the heat into the oil boiler. You may also want to put in a relay so that your water heater zone doesn't run if other zones are on or it may be simpler to put an aquastat or snap temp relay in that only allows it to run if the oil boiler is above say 160*. Just throwing out ideas. . .

 

[Birdman]

I like these ideas... however.... I don't like the idea of me looking for fixes like having to adjust the heat in one room to get another room up to temp. Yoiur solutions I may try if... for any reason... to keep me warm this year. I very much want a solution that will let me do this.... Turn up a thermostat and get the room to temp!.. and not have to worry about which room is hot or cold. I called Tarm last night at 4:45... praying I would get someone to talk to. I did. The people there have the best manners, and are extremely patient and knowledgable. Can't say enough about their customer service. Really topnotch. So.. they gave me a couple things to try and I did see some improvement.... but not enough. It was 18 degress last night and windy. I filled up the Tarm which was already about 150 F. I turned up the thermostat in bedroom #1 upstairs to 70. Downstairs bedrooms (#2 zone ) at 66. Cathedral living area( zone 3) to 68. All rooms were 60 to begin.... except upstair bedroom which was 63. The temp went up to 64 in the living room in about 4 hours. zone 2 went to 64. upstairs br to 65. I fed the tarm again at 10:30 for the rest of the night. At 10:30 all zones were still putting out heat... but the temp in the rooms was not increasing. I woke up at 6:00... checked the temps... all about the same... all zones still putting out heat. The heat coming out of zones is not wicked hot. Maybe if i could increase the temp of water to these zones it would be better? The return temp at the oil boiler is did not get below 125.... so that is good so my oil burner is not coming on. Solutions? I am still thinking hotter water to zones and maybe more baseboard? I have 34 ft of high output baseboard in cathedral living area?... I think if these things were crankin it should get hotter? This area does have high heat loss. 2 big sliders... 4 larger windows.. and of course.. all that volume of space to heat... not to mention it the heat goes up... i do have 2 fans pushing it down. 18 is cold... but i want to heat my house to at least 68 even when it is 5 degress outside. I know I have to increase the other side of the equation as well.... make the house less of a heat loss pig. However... that is tough when it is a log cabin...i want to put Tyvek around the outside walls... that may look trashy. kidding.

 

[WoodNotOil]

I like these ideas... however.... I don't like the idea of me looking for fixes like having to adjust the heat in one room to get another room up to temp. Yoiur solutions I may try if... for any reason... to keep me warm this year. I very much want a solution that will let me do this.... Turn up a thermostat and get the room to temp!.. and not have to worry about which room is hot or cold. I called Tarm last night at 4:45... praying I would get someone to talk to. I did. The people there have the best manners, and are extremely patient and knowledgable. Can't say enough about their customer service. Really topnotch. So.. they gave me a couple things to try and I did see some improvement.... but not enough. It was 18 degress last night and windy. I filled up the Tarm which was already about 150 F. I turned up the thermostat in bedroom #1 upstairs to 70. Downstairs bedrooms (#2 zone ) at 66. Cathedral living area( zone 3) to 68. All rooms were 60 to begin.... except upstair bedroom which was 63. The temp went up to 64 in the living room in about 4 hours. zone 2 went to 64. upstairs br to 65. I fed the tarm again at 10:30 for the rest of the night. At 10:30 all zones were still putting out heat... but the temp in the rooms was not increasing. I woke up at 6:00... checked the temps... all about the same... all zones still putting out heat. The heat coming out of zones is not wicked hot. Maybe if i could increase the temp of water to these zones it would be better? The return temp at the oil boiler is did not get below 125.... so that is good so my oil burner is not coming on. Solutions? I am still thinking hotter water to zones and maybe more baseboard? I have 34 ft of high output baseboard in cathedral living area?... I think if these things were crankin it should get hotter? This area does have high heat loss. 2 big sliders... 4 larger windows.. and of course.. all that volume of space to heat... not to mention it the heat goes up... i do have 2 fans pushing it down. 18 is cold... but i want to heat my house to at least 68 even when it is 5 degress outside. I know I have to increase the other side of the equation as well.... make the house less of a heat loss pig. However... that is tough when it is a log cabin...i want to put Tyvek around the outside walls... that may look trashy. kidding.

Out of curiosity what were the suggestions Tarm gave?

MrEd's solution of redirecting the flow from the tarm directly to the zones and redirecting the return to the tarm return bypassing the oil boiler all together sounds like your quick fix for this heating season. If your zones could get full temp water, it sounds like they would heat well. If you could plumb that yourself or have a buddy to help, you could get it working for now. Then over the summer have it piped in a real P/S. Or. . . you could try some of my earlier suggestions. . .

Another suggestion I have for the "cathedral living area" (a nice aesthetic, but a heating nightmare) is the possibility of fitting in a staple up radiant floor. That would keep the heat at your toes where you want it. Also, staple up likes temps around 140* which is why my system works fine in series. Not sure if you have access to the joists, but it may be a good change over the summer for next year.

 

[MrEd]

Relays are like an "If Then" statement. You put the wire that feeds a less important pump through the relay and then have a more important pump charge the relay. When the relay is charged it is like an on/off switch. It would not allow the less important pump to run until the relay is no longer charged (by the more important one) then the less important pump could run. This relay would work for 110vac http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=Z787-ND.

Not to hijack the thread, but any chance you could scratch out a very simplistic schematic of what that means...I "kind of get it", but need to solidify my understanding better so that I understand it intuitively...as a programmer, I get the if-then-else logic, but having a hard time actually visualizing how it would be wired and how it works...

I'll be delving into the wiring of my system shortly - right now I run more or less in "manual mode" - and as soon as my storage tank comes on line I need to wrap up the wiring. (my expansion tank finally arrived yesterday, only 40 days late)

 

[WoodNotOil]

MrEd

Sure. Here is a link to a page of my website with the wiring I use http://woodnotoil.googlepages.com/systemlayout . The top two points on the relay are called the coil and a + and - go to that to switch it on and off. This can be a any current level up to line level with this particular relay. So anything like a pump, thermostat, aquastat, etc. can trigger the switch on and off. That is separate from the current going through the relay. The DPDT relay is really two separate switches that are thrown at the same time. When the switch is not charged at the coil, current runs from 5 to 1 and from 6 to 2. When the switch is charged at the coil, current runs from 5 to 3 and 6 to 4 instead. This can be used as on/off or as an either/or. That is the if/then analogy. If the coil is charged, then what ever is hooked up to contacts 3 and 4 get current. If the coil is not charged, then whatever is hooked up to contacts 1 and 2 get current. It has a lot of applications and is very handy for $8!

 

[Birdman]

Funny that you mention the radiant hose staple up under joist idea. This is what I originally had in the house. I had it under all joists in the entire first floor. Terrible. In my application it just didn't work. I have been in houses where it is wonderful. Houses that have tyvek wrap to stop air.. and tight walls with insulation.. and rooms that have insulation in the interior walls and tight tight tight. It is also awesome underneath tile floors. NOt good for carpet on top or for large areas like cathedral. I can't stress this enough... I have a drafty log cabin... I need a ton of heat and I need it to come fast at times to keep up with heat loss. I tore out the tubes... so ineffective. I then put in a woostove in the cathedral area..... it was great... instant hot hot heat. However... the woodstove is now torn out.. becasuse I thought i could install teh Tarm ( which has tons of BTU output?) and crank the heat in this area somehow with baseboard(which i just installed as a new zone) or something else ( hot coils with blower?). That way I would have cleaner living area...( no smoke.. creosoot smell.. wood stogage in this area etc) with no woodstove and get the benefits of hot water and heating thet rest of the house too. Wife likes no woodstove... but wife wants it hotter. Me too. Woodstove is now in basement below the cathedral area... and could get hooked up in case of emergency. It comes down to ... I need more heat output in the house.. I know the Tarm is making it... I just need more of it to get out there... either hotter in the baseboard i have.. or more baseboard to get the heat out. The issue is also.. when this water returns.... it is cooler and gets recirculated and then the water is not hot enough... this occurs when all zones are open... when it is cold like 25 or below. I had the whole house at 70 when the temp outside was like 30. As you can tell... big heat loss.. it depends on temp outside alot.

 

[WoodNotOil]

Birdman

I hear you. The staple up should be in conjunction with baseboards anyway and your right doesn't work well with carpet. Have you thought about studding in the walls on the prevailing wind side of the house and putting insulation and sheet rocking it? I know the log aesthetic is probably the point here, but that much heat loss is not sustainable forever, even with the Tarm.