Best way to tie the wood boiler/storage into the existing primary/secondary circuit?

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Oct 30, 2013
27
Northern New Mexico
Okay guys I am looking for a diagram/explination of how to tie a wood boiler plus storage thats out in a shed to my existing primary secondary loop thats setup with closely spaced tee's and a 4 way valve out to pex manifolds then to the radiators using two bumblebee pumps. Should I tee into the primary piping that the gas boiler is on with closely spaced tees?
 
My system has closed spaced T's on the out leg of the oil boiler. Pump mounted right there to pull from wood boiler storage if relay is satisfied by storage over 140 degrees. Works great. Rarely do I ever see the oil boiler jacket heat up at all. Only when lots of zones are calling and many pumps are on supplying the zones.

JP
 
Post a drawing of how it is currently piped. There are a few different ways to pipe P/S.

A few options, pipe the new boiler as a secondary, in parallel, or add a hydraulic separator.
 
[Hearth.com] Best way to tie the wood boiler/storage into the existing primary/secondary circuit?
 
Found one that looks like it will work. My setup is almost exactly the same except it has a 4 way mix valve. Looks like they are injecting the wood boiler water into the primary circuit of the gas boiler.
 
View attachment 170012 Read the attached article and the first diagram is wrong and these are the fixes.

In this drawing you are running a hot tank and injecting temperature into the primary loop based on outdoor reset. It is a nice way to always match the supply temperature to the ever changing building load. No need to send 180F into the distribution if a lower temperature can handle the load.

The key is to make sure you have enough radiation to allow it to run at lower temperatures. Many systems are over radiated, and most locations are at design conditions less than 20% of the year, so ODR controls really maximize that system performance.

A vertical tank is better yet as the stratification will allow addition heat draw.

This Idronics issue has some of the latest options for piping tanks.

http://www.caleffi.com/sites/default/files/coll_attach_file/idronics_17_na.pdf
 
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I have about 45k btu of radiator load at 170* in a 1100sq ft house. My boiler is turned down to where the gauge on the manifold reads 140 or so because it was too warm in the house. I have the valves on the radiators turned down also. Low temp water definitely does the job in my house.
 
Stayed up late reading the idronics file on tanks. Riveting. Perhaps I have an illness.
 
I have about 45k btu of radiator load at 170* in a 1100sq ft house. My boiler is turned down to where the gauge on the manifold reads 140 or so because it was too warm in the house. I have the valves on the radiators turned down also. Low temp water definitely does the job in my house.

That will serve you very well, when heating from storage. Nice.
 
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