Attempt #1 to post picture of piping.

[Gasifier]

Attempt #1 at posting picture of piping.

Holy s*$# I think it worked. :wow: This is a picture of my existing oil boiler and piping. Hope some of you can take a look at this and tell me about adding my Wood Gun and storage tank to this system. This is pressurized and I want to keep the system that way. If you look at where the 90 angle is on the main hot water feed above boiler I think I can just put a T fitting there and run pipe from wood boiler/storage tank and have them be paralell. The same basically with the return which is just to the right and above. That comes down to the bottom of oil boiler in front on right side. What I call a manifold might not be the correct term but basically have one that is fed from main hot water line on oil boiler and one that is fed from all return lines and goes to main return on boiler bottom right side. Just to the right of the smoke stack is a 90 angle on the main return line that leads to the bottom of the boiler. I believe I could just put a T fitting there and go on by to the wood boiler. What else do you guys need to know? I know the picture is not the best. Sorry.

The storage tank and wood boiler will be about 12 feet away on the other side of the hallway which is between existing boiler room and new wood boiler room. So about 8 feet to storage tank and 12 feet to wood boiler.

 

[bigburner]

may want to look at the current pump install, motor up may be an issue if pressure is low. just saying

 

[Gasifier]

Okay. Please explain. Keeping in mind that I am boiler impaired with no experience with installs. Peerless boiler that has worked flawlessly since installed about seven years ago. That is cleaned every year. Currently there is a circulation pump for each zone. One for indirect DHW tank, and five more for each zone of house/garage. In the picture is three circulation pumps (green) that you can see and to the left is one more (black) for DHW tank. Tank has it's own temp. setting. The three circulation pumps are for the basement zone, the first floor zone, and the second floor zone. Then there is a main feed pipe that goes to the other end of the house, about 32 feet away. Under the stairs are two more circulation pumps that feed the in-floor heating in the garage and the floor above the garage. These pumps are a little bigger than the ones you see in the picture. So the current system heats the house well. I was supplementing with wood stove. (Heat from basement going up two staircases did about 60-70 percent of house) So apparently you are saying that I would need stronger circulation to draw the water from the wood stove and storage tank to get it over to the existing piping system. Is that what you mean? Would I put one larger circulation pump over on line that goes to tank/boiler? Keeping in mind the tank would be first after about 8 feet away and then the boiler would be about 4-6 feet further. Thanks for your comments. Any suggestions are really appreciated.

 

[ewdudley]

may want to look at the current pump install, motor up may be an issue if pressure is low. just saying

Okay. Please explain. Keeping in mind ...

Bigburner is merely pointing out that your circulators have the motors vertical, which should be avoided. But supposedly it's OK if system pressure is greater than 20 psig.

http://www.taco-hvac.com/uploads/FileLibrary/101-029.pdf

 

[Gasifier]

May want to look at the current pump install, motor up may be an issue if pressure is low. just saying

Bigburner is merely pointing out that your circulators have the motors vertical, which should be avoided. But supposedly it’s OK if system pressure is greater than 20 psi

Ooohhh. Interesting. Never would have known that. I'll be alright guys. :coolsmile: I misunderstood what you meant Bigburner. I think my system runs around 15psi, I went down and checked the boiler and that is what it looks like. Although it seems to have worked well for the last seven years since they put it in. Either they did not know what you guys do about the circulation pumps or looking closer at the manifold pipe they used there may have been a space issue. I don't think they would of had room for them any other way. So the circulation pumps I have should have enough power then right? So putting the two T fittings in to bring the water from the tank/wood boiler into this existing systems sounds okay then? I will need an expansion tank for the new boiler and one for the storage tank. Is that correct? Thanks for the info guys. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[woodsmaster]

you can use one expansion tank or a combination of tanks

 

[ewdudley]

So putting the two T fittings in to bring the water from the tank/wood boiler into this existing systems sounds okay then? I will need an expansion tank for the new boiler and one for the storage tank. Is that correct? Thanks for the info guys. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

You've got pumps à gogo, which could cause a couple problems.

One would be pulling water through the oil boiler when it's supposed to be off-line. Another would be mixing storage by running water round-and-round.

With a WoodGun and smallish storage you may be intending to use your storage more as a buffer, meaning that the boiler will cycle-off when the tank gets hot and then it sits in its dormant mode until the tank cools off, and then it re-ignites to bring the tank back up to temp again. In this scenario stratification may not be important at all and therefore mixing the tank with too much circulation might not be a problem at all.

Isolating the oil boiler when it is off-line would be more problematic. To do it right consider DWG NO PT1 [need to screen-scrape and past whole link most likely]:

http://hillsideenergy.com/Downloadable files/Woodboilerpipingdiagrams.pdf

The system in the schematic gets into a lot of controls, plus the big zone valve and the big termovar diverting valve, which could get expensive. But in any event you might want to study what they're accomplishing with that system and see if each of its purposes is important to you in your situation.

--ewd

 

[Gasifier]

You’ve got pumps à gogo, which could cause a couple problems. One would be pulling water through the oil boiler when it’s supposed to be off-line. Another would be mixing storage by running water round-and-round. With a WoodGun and smallish storage you may be intending to use your storage more as a buffer, meaning that the boiler will cycle-off when the tank gets hot and then it sits in its dormant mode until the tank cools off, and then it re-ignites to bring the tank back up to temp again. In this scenario stratification may not be important at all and therefore mixing the tank with too much circulation might not be a problem at all. Isolating the oil boiler when it is off-line would be more problematic.

Thank you sir for your time. I appreciate it. A couple of questions.

First. Would a simple, cheaper solution be to put a shut-off valve just before the T fittings on the supply and return line to oil boiler, shut them when wood boiler is in use and open them when oil boiler is needed? I would loose the ability of back-up from oil boiler, which I did not want to do, but might be better than getting more complicated and costly. That would also force me to use less oil and keep the wood going, which is what I want to do. Why would isolating boiler when off line be more problematic?

Second. You say with a Wood Gun with smallish storage.... I ended up buying a former air pressure tank that is in nice shape. It is at least 375 gallons, probably 400 or more. My intentions of the storage with the wood gun is to be able to use the wood gun more in the fall and spring for heating purposes with less down time and, if I don't mind it, heating domestic hot water in the summer time. How do you think I should use it? And what is the difference? Buffer, storage? Isn't it all hot energy storage? Thanks for your input.

 

[ewdudley]

First. Would a simple, cheaper solution be to put a shut-off valve just before the T fittings on the supply and return line to oil boiler, shut them when wood boiler is in use and open them when oil boiler is needed? I would loose the ability of back-up from oil boiler, which I did not want to do, but might be better than getting more complicated and costly. That would also force me to use less oil and keep the wood going, which is what I want to do. Why would isolating boiler when off line be more problematic?

I just meant that the tank mixing problem can be seen as harmless, so it's easy to solve by virtue of not being a problem to begin with. But the problem of pulling hot return water through your idle oil boiler would be harder to 'solve' because you might need to revise your components and plumbing.

The valve solution would be simple and is guaranteed to work since it would return your system to its original configuration when the valve to storage is closed and the valve to the oil boiler is opened.

Second. You say with a Wood Gun with smallish storage.... I ended up buying a former air pressure tank that is in nice shape. It is at least 375 gallons, probably 400 or more. My intentions of the storage with the wood gun is to be able to use the wood gun more in the fall and spring for heating purposes with less down time and, if I don't mind it, heating domestic hot water in the summer time. How do you think I should use it? And what is the difference? Buffer, storage? Isn't it all hot energy storage?

I say the distinction between buffer and storage is that for storage the boiler runs continuously until it has consumed all its fuel and any extra heat goes into the storage tank for use until the next fire. Most storage systems are large enough to carry the load for half a day or more. This is better for most gasifiers because they may tend to idle dirty.

A buffer is a tank used to extend the burn cycle of a boiler to make the burn times longer and more efficient. A buffer tank can be smaller because there is a lot of heat stored in the unburned fuel left in the boiler. The WoodGun is supposedly ideally suited for use with a buffer because they are designed to cycle on and off cleanly and if the burn time is extended by a buffer tank then so much the better.

400 gallons is big enough that it could function as a storage tank milder weather and as a buffer in the dead of winter. And it's plenty big enough to use for hot water storage for maybe a week at a time in the summer.

 

[stee6043]

I'll share that I had a brand new Taco 007 fail in less than one full heating season while mounted with the motor vertical. I was running 15-20psi (cold-hot). If you start to hear ticking or any kind of "whuuuring" you'll know why.