DHW - Side arm exchanger or plate exchanger?

[68dodgeramman]

What do you suggest, side arm or plate? I just ordered our WoodGun E-100 the other day and now I'm trying to figure out the best way for me to go for my DHW. I basically just want what I think everybody wants, a good supply of hot water, fast and now. We are using the boiler in the garage and will heat the garage with a heating unit. We plan on heating the house with a heat exchanger in our NG forced air furnace. And then heat our water also. Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Duetech]

If you have a constant flow from your circulator going to your air/water heat exchanger you will always have a "now" hot water supply with a side arm. There are two circs running on my system one for the boiler the other supplies heat and hot water to the house. Water is piped through the sidearm first and then goes to the exchanger in my oil furnace. My regular water heater is propane and by design is not very efficeint (the part of the water heater that allows exhaust fumes to exit the water heater in a safe manner also allows the heated water to cool). My next standard water heater will be electric because they don't have the "flow through" cooling design mentioned above. I have never had a plate heat exchanger but it seems to me if there were not a storage tank (i.e. the hot water tank) then you would not have any back-up hot water immediately available if you were to have a circ fail or you needed to shut the boiler down for some reason. Using a plate heater as a "convectional" heat supply (which is all a sidearm is) for the hotwater tank would be the same as a sidearm. Using a circ to pipe water through the plate heater and into the tank is just a nother power consuming device. Side arms take a little longer to regenerate the dhw when the supply is depleted but the "regeneration supply" is always active when the secondary circ is opperating.