Closely spaced tee question

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tigermaple

Member
Jan 3, 2008
88
Fingerlakes, NY
Ok, I am going to rework my system so I have closely spaced tee's to eliminate ghost flows, as has been suggested here. My question is should the return be in front or behind the supply? I am coming in off the greenwood and directly connecting into the vertical 1 1/4 in pipe coming out the oil boiler and to the house heat that goes to 3 zones with a circulator on each pushing into the bottom of the oil boiler. Should the return be on the top or bottom of the supply on that vertical pipe? Sorry for the probable dumbness of this post.
 
If you use the Taco tees it doesn't matter - they have a very clever design that solves the upstream/downstream problem. This is a very complicated issue in primary/secondary systems with storage, since the secondary flow can be in either direction in the storage loop.

If you're using conventional tees, then you want to draw from the upstream tee and return (from your secondary loop) to the downstream tee. Otherwise, you're just recirculating through your secondary loop.

Go with the primary flow, not against it.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks nofossil for your reply. I went to work today and put the return on top to go with the flow. I was concerned because the flow will go past the supply coming in to go back to the greenwood, but only for a few inches. I put the tees as close as I could using standard tees, about 3.5". I will know soon as I test fired the system a little while ago. The temp is up to 140º and no ghost flows yet.
 
No ghost flows! I will be nice to be able to control the heat with a thermostat instead of ball valves. It does take a little longer to warm up the radiators though...
 
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