Beginning New Install for PB105 ---- Some Early Pics

[Gasifier]

Nice SmokeEater. Nice. Any flames yet?

 

[SmokeEater]

Have to add my "looks great - job well done" also.

When I saw your post that said 80' of 1.25, 45 L's, many T's, I began to think about pump head. Have you done a pump head calculation, equivalent feet, # of gpm you need to move to handle the btu output, size of circulator(s) you need? 80' + 45 L's (? T's - each adds 7'; + other fittings, valves, plate hx, etc.) adds up to about 250' of equivalent pipe length. 1.25 is normally rated at 14 gpm, which is 140,000 btuH at delta-T=20F. Line loss (pump head) for 250' is about 13' at 14 gpm. Take a look at your system design as to sizing circulators to make sure you get the performance you expect or need.

Actual lengths of the 1.25" totalled 70' and I guesstimated another 10' with the sum of the nipples, but I have 2 boilers, 1 pellet and 1 oil, that will not operate simultaneously, although they can under certain conditions. The two boiler are very independent of each other. Both, either, will send all heat through a fairly short section of piping (with els and Ts) to a 95 gallon buffer tank. The oil boiler is a little distance away from the buffer tank and so it has an estimated 15' of the 1.25 connecting it to the tank. The tank's boiler connections and the supply connections are 1.5". I have reduced the DHW connections to 1.25". There is a short recirculation loop on the buffer tank with a Grundfos UPS 15-55SFC pump moving the water through a 50 plate HX with 1.25" connections. The two boilers have 007 pumps connected to only move their water to the buffer, one is a Delta T and the other a 3 speed. The system has the greatest length of piping and fittings, but 20 feet of the 1.25" is in two 10' length, one for suppliy and one return. The system pump is a delta T 0012. I haven't done a detailed pump head calculation an I appreciate your input, though you've given me some good numbers to investigate. One of my (new) concerns would be the job that system pump has and it may not have enough capacity to do the job I want.

 

[SmokeEater]

Nice SmokeEater. Nice. Any flames yet?

Gasifier

If Murphy's Law doesn't put too many kinks in the works, I'm hoping for some fire by week's end. I've leaned not to be too optimistic on time.

 

[Gasifier]

Nice SmokeEater. Nice. Any flames yet?

Gasifier
If Murphy's Law doesn't put too many kinks in the works, I'm hoping for some fire by week's end. I've leaned not to be too optimistic on time.

:lol: I hear ya SmokeEater. I started doing some research in January of 2011. Found this site a while later. Thankfully. Started planning a new boiler system with some storage. Fired it up October 1, 2011. And that was paying to have the install done after I got everything in place. It will be worth it all in the end. Will you have, or have you considered, a power source if the power was to go out? So that you can continue to run pellet boiler and circulation pumps that are needed? Just curious. Good luck with firing it up!

 

[SmokeEater]

Nice SmokeEater. Nice. Any flames yet?

Gasifier
If Murphy's Law doesn't put too many kinks in the works, I'm hoping for some fire by week's end. I've leaned not to be too optimistic on time.

:lol: I hear ya SmokeEater. I started doing some research in January of 2011. Found this site a while later. Thankfully. Started planning a new boiler system with some storage. Fired it up October 1, 2011. And that was paying to have the install done after I got everything in place. It will be worth it all in the end. Will you have, or have you considered, a power source if the power was to go out? So that you can continue to run pellet boiler and circulation pumps that are needed? Just curious. Good luck with firing it up!

I've been reading some of your comments and threads; good stuff. Yes, I do have plans to install an emergency UPS, but right now funds are at the budget's limit. Am going to (plan to) buy a Group 921 flooded lead acid 12v battery from the Trojan company and connect is through a Sunforce pure sine wave inverter. I can always add more batteries in parallel and even run some other critical items in the house if there is an outage. I have a 7 kW honda gen set, but don't trust that the output is "clean" enough for the PC board on the pellet boiler. The battery I'm interested in has a capacity of over 2.4 kWh, which will run my boiler, pumps, and zone valves for over 3 1/2 hours and that's running 3 pumps and 4 zone valves at max output. Two batts would be real nice!
See the following for info on the batteries and inverter.

http://www.sunforceproducts.com/results.php?CAT_ID=22

http://www.trojanbatteryre.com/index2.html

 

[SmokeEater]

Finished essential wiring, at least enough to be able to try for a test fire maybe tomorrow. Getting pretty anxious to see fire after a month an a half (some kind of record for longevity) of construction. Have included one pic of the finished project. Still have all 2nd floor baseboard to install and connect so I'll have plenty to do for March.

 

[Gasifier]

Looks great smokeeater! I hope all goes well for you. That pellet boiler should be sweet. Simple, and low amount of work after all the initial install is done compared to heating with wood. How long do you figure that hopper will last you in the colder weather? I am not familiar with the pellet boilers.

 

[SmokeEater]

Looks great smokeeater! I hope all goes well for you. That pellet boiler should be sweet. Simple, and low amount of work after all the initial install is done compared to heating with wood. How long do you figure that hopper will last you in the colder weather? I am not familiar with the pellet boilers.

Hopper holds about 5 bags and every install being different, I don't know how long a full hopper would last. I've heard the "normal" burn on a "normal" winter day is about 2 bags. Some say 3. Anyway if 2 bags is the burn, a hopper should last about 2 1/2 days. Harman make another free standing hopper that holds about 1200 pounds. Don't feel too bad for me paying the big bucks for pellets. I've always burned "free" wood. Like many of us, I cut, buck, split, pile, move, re-pile wood. Still plan to do that only I'll be a little more particular about the moisture content, because I can see many gasifiers "down the road", and some of their owners will want to buy some nice well seasoned, split hardwood. I'll sell it and buy pellets. That's my solution to end the army of bugs, spiders, and cellar mold I had with the split wood. I just wasn't set up well to store and burn wood efficiently. Thought of a gasifier, but I'd still have the bug-spider-mold problem. I figure that if I sell even 20 face cords at $55 each, it'll cut a big chunk out of my pellet cost (no delivery, just pick-up).