OK so now I got it , now what, I my installation will have the pump mounted wrong side up. Do I just take out the two allen screws and turnthe motor assembly 180*. I don't have a pro doing that if that's what supposed to happen, but I don't want to screw it up either. Also there is only one dial on that pump. Where do I set it. The instructions are not that clear to me. I know we have experts here that can help me out again. Thanks for your help. Jim
Wilo-Stratos Eco has arrived!
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the pumps I've heard of all have to be mounted in a praticular way. Upside-down sounds wrong for a circ. The ones I have used (Taco 007) allowed for re-aligning the circ so that incase of a seal going bad water would not leak on to/into any electrical components.
Chris S
New Member
I am a Wilo fan, have installed several dozen of them. Is that the 16f?
Similar to the taco, you can remove the screws and turn the head, easier to do before its installed.
Pump shaft needs to be horizontal, as shown in their schematics ( just like taco)
The larger circulators ( 240 volt) are a little more complicated.
If you need anything further feel free to pm me
Chris
Similar to the taco, you can remove the screws and turn the head, easier to do before its installed.
Pump shaft needs to be horizontal, as shown in their schematics ( just like taco)
The larger circulators ( 240 volt) are a little more complicated.
If you need anything further feel free to pm me
Chris
heaterman
Minister of Fire
The VS Wilos are my favorite circs. Can't believe the energy savings on some of the larger systems we have done. With the interface modules available a person can control them about any way you can think of.
I am also beginning to use their 2 and 3 speed circ instead of Grundfos and Taco. Much more robust speed switch on the little wet rotors and metal wiring compartment rather than plastic like Grunt. You can also order them with the flange orientation parallel or perpendicular to the pump shaft.
And yes! All wet rotor pumps regardless of manufacturer should be mounted with the motor shaft horizontal. Always.
I am also beginning to use their 2 and 3 speed circ instead of Grundfos and Taco. Much more robust speed switch on the little wet rotors and metal wiring compartment rather than plastic like Grunt. You can also order them with the flange orientation parallel or perpendicular to the pump shaft.
And yes! All wet rotor pumps regardless of manufacturer should be mounted with the motor shaft horizontal. Always.
heaterman
Minister of Fire
muleman51 said:
The manual that came with the circ will detail how to rotate the can. It even has pictures for guys like me.
huffdawg
Minister of Fire
Chris S
New Member
Chris S said:
I used a RIB relay 2401D.
The Vigas controls the pump by sending 110v to the relay, the relay has a 220v line coming in that is then switched to the pump.
I have the second pump at the oil boiler side that is controlled by the same type of relay and it gets it signal from a Ranco ETC-211000-000
The pumps work great and the electrical savings will make up for their cost in no time.
heaterman
Minister of Fire
NYEDGE said:
Keep an eye on those when using a cheap RIB type or a standard fan control relay. The reason for this is that the internal protection built into the Wilo will see the millisecond difference in the breaking of the contacts and fault out after a time. If you are not using the external control interface offered by Wilo you should at least be using an industrial grade contactor like an Allen Bradley or Seimens.
woodsmaster
Minister of Fire
NYEDGE said:
When you say they will pay for themselves in no time, how long do you suspect no time is ?
woodsmaster said:
In my thoughts with respect to the life of the unit (and mine) I would say a couple of years. May not be considered "no time" for all, but i tend to think long term.
With the Wood boiler pump running for approximately 10-12 hrs. per burn x 2 burns a day, and the 2nd pump running frequently as well, that adds up to a lot of hours.
Here is a link for the Wilo pump that offers an example of energy savings. Wilo Pump Brochure
heaterman
Minister of Fire
woodsmaster said:
Here's a real life example from a job we did this summer. These circs are far larger than what you would see in a residential setting but the ratio of energy savings has been proved to pretty much the same across the board.
We replaced a 3HP Taco running a zone in a school with a Wilo 1.5x3-40 (1.5"flange, head 3-40') This zone was constant circ running basically 24-7 from mid September through May. The Taco pulled 17.5 amps @230V. The Wilo draws 2.1 amps at the same voltage. Almost an 8X decrease in electricity.
Now here's the other thing that it allowed us to do and this is just as significant to the system as the electrical savings. The Taco ran that zone with a nearly imperceptible temp drop from supply to return. On really cold days I could measure 5-7 degrees max difference. Not what you would design for and especially if you were running the system with modulating/condensing boilers, which is what we changed it to. We dialed the Wilo down, then down again, and again until I was seeing a 20* drop across that zone. Far better for boiler efficiency not only in a mod/con boiler but even in a wood boiler. The building super told me last week during our arctic blast that the zone heated better than it ever has. Temps were very even room to room and they all heated together for the first time in 22 years since that addition to the school was constructed.
What does that mean for us wood burners? Lot's of things. Creating the right Delta T supply to return will make your wood boiler more efficient too When it has a nice 20 degree drop to chew on your stack temps will go down and overall efficiency will go up because of the greater temp diff between the fire and water side of the boiler.
20* doesn't seem like much but when you multiply it by the surface area of your heat exchanger it adds up.
Also let's suppose you have a heat exchanger in the system. You can do the same there too. Just dial the Wilo up or down to acheive your desired temp split. That can be that 5* or 30*, whatever your system works best at.
Or lets say you have a system with 6 zones operated with zone valves. The pump will always "look" for the pressure differential you have dialed in to it. that means whether 1 zone is open or all 6 are calling, you will always have the same flow going through you loops or baseboard. There is where you can pick up that nice 20 or even 30* delta T and let your boiler work the way it should. You'll find that once you start approaching your system from a Delta T standpoint, the required pumping power goes way way down. Nearly every system I look at has way to much HP on it, with the exception of the dreaded 300' runs of 1" pex tubing. Nothing can help those except a backhoe.
Using the interface modules available, you can set up a Wilo Stratos to run based on pressure differential, outdoor temp, supply/return temp, time, or even with a 0-10vdc or a LON building management system. They are extremely versatile and have about 3 times the starting torque of a standard wet rotor circ also.
woodsmaster
Minister of Fire
Thanks for the info. If I hit the lotto I'll run some wire and buy new pumps till then I'll have to use what I have. lol
heaterman said:
Thanks for the information. I think I understand most of it, but how do you explain the more even performance vs the previous oversized pump?
Heaterman - I am with benjamin on the comfort question -- please explain how lowering the flow at the terminal units increased the comfort level.
heaterman
Minister of Fire
The zone consists of 25 Trane room unit heaters/ventilators, some of which are floor mounted and some of which are floor mounted. The Taco was a classic case of engineers CYA factor. Obviously oversized by a factor of 2 at least. The sweet spot on that pump's curve came in at 50GPM and 75 ft of head. Can we say SCREAMIN!! water through the pipes?
Main piping from the boiler room is 2.5" copper which reduces as it branches off, finally ending up at 3/4" tube going to each heating unit. The zone was essentially piped correctly being reverse return so the first radiation off the main was the last one back on.
My heat loss calculation for that entire zone was 265,000 +/- a few, so if I could get a 20* drop that told me we only needed about 26-27GPM. That flow rate through 2.5" tube develops very little head. So I knew we were safe going to the Wilo which is only rated at 40' of head.
Now........what is happening in each room is that those poor Trane units are finally seeing their design flow rate and temp drop going through them. By lowering the flow rate we gave them what they were engineered for by Trane in the first place. When you are that far over spec, weird things start happening in the piping. Two classrooms on the far North of the zone and one on the extreme South never heated like the other rooms. The building super told me that when he opened the air vents on those "problem" units water would just trickle out, but when he opened them on the units closest to the main, water would literally shoot clear across the room . They had engineers in there as well as 3 or 4 different mechanical contracting companies to try and figure it out over the years and they all recommended bigger pumps or a booster situated down the line. Thankfully the school never invested in those ideas.
Head/GPM is not a linear thing. I had a hunch that with head that high, the first "drops" off the main were scrubbing off most of the head available in the system, leaving the ends sucking the hind teat so to speak. There was so much dissipated up front that there was nothing left at the ends. You could hear the water flow in the first dozen or so units.
When we got the flow rate dialed in to where the equipment was designed to work at, all the variation in GPM to each heating unit leveled out. Those problem rooms heated just fine a couple weeks ago at -20* overnight temps.
Looking at the curve(s) available on the Wilo, I saw that I could get my 26-27GPM anywhere between 8 to 40 ft of head. Being able to dial the circ in to the needs of the zone made all the difference. Normally as the head goes down, the flow rate will go up, to a certain point. By dialing back our head, we are probably actually getting more flow to those units out on the ends of the zone. The bigger pump with its ultra high head was doing the same thing as all these guys who try to ram 15GPM down 200' of 1" underground pex. After you reach a certain point, all you do is make more head while flow stays the same. All you wind up doing is scrubbing off horsepower.
I hope that makes a little sense. If you could look at the pump curves for the Taco and the Wilo side by side you could see what I'm referring to pretty easily.
Main piping from the boiler room is 2.5" copper which reduces as it branches off, finally ending up at 3/4" tube going to each heating unit. The zone was essentially piped correctly being reverse return so the first radiation off the main was the last one back on.
My heat loss calculation for that entire zone was 265,000 +/- a few, so if I could get a 20* drop that told me we only needed about 26-27GPM. That flow rate through 2.5" tube develops very little head. So I knew we were safe going to the Wilo which is only rated at 40' of head.
Now........what is happening in each room is that those poor Trane units are finally seeing their design flow rate and temp drop going through them. By lowering the flow rate we gave them what they were engineered for by Trane in the first place. When you are that far over spec, weird things start happening in the piping. Two classrooms on the far North of the zone and one on the extreme South never heated like the other rooms. The building super told me that when he opened the air vents on those "problem" units water would just trickle out, but when he opened them on the units closest to the main, water would literally shoot clear across the room . They had engineers in there as well as 3 or 4 different mechanical contracting companies to try and figure it out over the years and they all recommended bigger pumps or a booster situated down the line. Thankfully the school never invested in those ideas.
Head/GPM is not a linear thing. I had a hunch that with head that high, the first "drops" off the main were scrubbing off most of the head available in the system, leaving the ends sucking the hind teat so to speak. There was so much dissipated up front that there was nothing left at the ends. You could hear the water flow in the first dozen or so units.
When we got the flow rate dialed in to where the equipment was designed to work at, all the variation in GPM to each heating unit leveled out. Those problem rooms heated just fine a couple weeks ago at -20* overnight temps.
Looking at the curve(s) available on the Wilo, I saw that I could get my 26-27GPM anywhere between 8 to 40 ft of head. Being able to dial the circ in to the needs of the zone made all the difference. Normally as the head goes down, the flow rate will go up, to a certain point. By dialing back our head, we are probably actually getting more flow to those units out on the ends of the zone. The bigger pump with its ultra high head was doing the same thing as all these guys who try to ram 15GPM down 200' of 1" underground pex. After you reach a certain point, all you do is make more head while flow stays the same. All you wind up doing is scrubbing off horsepower.
I hope that makes a little sense. If you could look at the pump curves for the Taco and the Wilo side by side you could see what I'm referring to pretty easily.
Did you check the system balance before and after. ?? What was wrong with the old boiler, did it have erosion?
heaterman
Minister of Fire
There were no balance valves of any kind on that particular zone. Just a pair of ball valves for isolation purposes at each classroom unit.
The 2 old boilers were Patterson Kelley 1.2MM btu units that we had been nursing along for the last 10 years or so. Both had the heat exchanger replaced and the last of February 2010 one of them failed again. The school decided it was time for the recycle bin and we replaced them with 4 wall hung Viessmann Vitodens 370K M/C boilers. What a slick rig that system is. We used a Viessmann made rack that comes preassembled and the boilers just hang on that. We also took out to standard vent, 100gl water heaters and replaced them with a single 120gl Viessmann indirect.
This bit of info is worth sharing and good food for thought. The PK's we took out were not that old as boilers go and rated at 85¯UE. The Viessmann boilers are rated at 95% so given that, one would expect to see 10% savings. So far this winter, which is decidedly colder than last, their fuel bill is down nearly 26%.
The 2 old boilers were Patterson Kelley 1.2MM btu units that we had been nursing along for the last 10 years or so. Both had the heat exchanger replaced and the last of February 2010 one of them failed again. The school decided it was time for the recycle bin and we replaced them with 4 wall hung Viessmann Vitodens 370K M/C boilers. What a slick rig that system is. We used a Viessmann made rack that comes preassembled and the boilers just hang on that. We also took out to standard vent, 100gl water heaters and replaced them with a single 120gl Viessmann indirect.
This bit of info is worth sharing and good food for thought. The PK's we took out were not that old as boilers go and rated at 85¯UE. The Viessmann boilers are rated at 95% so given that, one would expect to see 10% savings. So far this winter, which is decidedly colder than last, their fuel bill is down nearly 26%.
Curious - Was this a competitive bid situation? Wondering how competitive these product lines are? Who's the rep/wholesaler for Viessmann ?
heaterman
Minister of Fire
I submitted a bid along with two other firms, both of which were offering Lochinvar Knight boilers. I gave a bid for them also and offered the Viessmann package as an alternate proposal. There are some substantial differences in the heat exchanger construction as well as the burner and the building committee went for the Viessmann package when they were made aware of these details.
My Lochinvar bid was pretty much in the ball park but higher and the Viessmann package was about 10% more. There is no doubt in my mind that they made the right choice. They run sweeeeeeet!
Johnstone Supply West Michigan is where I get my Viessmann equipment from, as well as about everything else and the guy you want to get in touch with there is John Oortquist. Super company. Super people to work with. Send me a PM if you need phone numbers.
My Lochinvar bid was pretty much in the ball park but higher and the Viessmann package was about 10% more. There is no doubt in my mind that they made the right choice. They run sweeeeeeet!
Johnstone Supply West Michigan is where I get my Viessmann equipment from, as well as about everything else and the guy you want to get in touch with there is John Oortquist. Super company. Super people to work with. Send me a PM if you need phone numbers.
Thanks Heaterman - deal with the JSS in Lansing. I probably under utilize them, kinda creature of habit and they came into the game late. bought manurop compressors from them before. Will make it a point to check out the boiler ,hydr stuff. Hear lots of good about the Knight boiler from my plumber friends. did some Lochinvar tube boiler and the large DHW direct vent with combustion air piped outside [don't remember the model] for some projects I was managing, these were all critical for business operation and we put in redundant units because of parts availability etc. When you sit threw all the design development meetings it nice to get what you want speced!!
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