Does your Sidearm work?

[easternbob]

Working on the instalation of my EKO 25 and the HVAC guy who is helping me isn't too big on sidearms he thniks I won't get enough heat of of it. Was wondering if the people with sidearms were getting enough DHW to meet the needs of their household. It's just me and my wife so I don't think we'll have a huge demand. Plan is to install a 80 gal elec. hot water heater for use during the summer with a sidearm during the heating season. Will I have enough hot water?
Thanks,
Bob

 

[atlarge54]

I chose a sidearm because of simplicity and robust design strength vs. flat plate. Mine is attatched to a standard 50 gal. elec. water heater. Household of two and haven't run out of hot water yet.

 

[easternbob]

Atlarge,
Thanks for posting. Your right the sidearm seems so nice and simple nothing to break, no pumps to run. The HVAC guy is suggesting the elec. water heater for summer and a indirect tank for during the heating season. The indirect tanks are expensive and seems like overkill to have two tanks sitting in my basement if one 80 gal with a sidearm will take care of everything.
Bob

 

[Nofossil]

Somebody needs to make an 'ultimate' hot water tank:

- One internal HX coil with option for a second coil (solar)
- Electric heating element for backup
- Extra top and bottom fittings for sidearm attachment
- Multiple temp sensor / aquastat wells at different heights

 

[deerefanatic]

An 80 with a side arm should do nicely. I think you'll be fine. Plus, if you do have a large demand, like company or something, you have TWO sources of heat in that tank, the electric AND the sidearm so your recovery rate should be really good....

I suggest putting in a thermostatic mixing valve, set it for your desired hot water temperature, then use the sidearm to heat that tank up to 160F or a little over. Heating your water alot hotter in the tank, then mixing it down with a thermostatic valve, effectively makes your tank larger.

Note, if you have a dishwasher, take the hot water for that straight from the tank, before the thermostatic valve. You'll be amazed at how much better it cleans and how much less electricity it will take with that superheated water.

If you haven't bought your electric heater yet, I suggest a Sears Kenmore PowerMiser. I have one of these that I'm using just as a wood heater with sidearm. It's glass lined, spotless inside, has the rotoswirl inlet tube that keeps the sediment stirred up and out of suspension so that you don't get a rock in the bottom of the heater, and has at least 3" of polyurethane foam insulation in it.

Put it this way, the Powermiser hooked to my wood burner currently has 160F water in it. The jacket of the heater reads 73F and the top of the heater reads 82F.... Thats in a 67F basement. The Reliance 606 Gas heater that the power miser dumps into has water thats around 130 in it right now, and it reads the same temperature on the outside and the top is a little warmer..... It PAYS to have a well insulated water heater. And unfortunately, most water heater blankets are not a good idea as they can hold moisture and rust out your tank....

 

[mysticfalcon]

Closest Ive seen is an indirect with electric backup designed for solar use but the multiple aquastats are what I really want. Id really like one so that I could have my wood heat the tank to 160 but if the oil is running to only do 140

 

[deerefanatic]

Somebody needs to make an 'ultimate' hot water tank:

- One internal HX coil with option for a second coil (solar)
- Electric heating element for backup
- Extra top and bottom fittings for sidearm attachment
- Multiple temp sensor / aquastat wells at different heights

Yah, but it'd have an "Ultimate" Price too!

I like old electric heaters..... They have the electric backup if you need it, ports for sidearm, and if you don't need the electric, you can always cobble together aquastat adapters that would fit in the element holes. And they're usually cheap too! In fact, I'm using the electric heater temperature sensors on my electric to run my circ pump. (Well, they run 12v now and actually send a demand signal to a relay...... )

 

[Eric Johnson]

You'll have plenty of hot water with that setup. The only issue with sidearms is that if you have hard water, you have to flush 5 or 10 gallons out of the bottom every few weeks, because the scale can accumulate and slow or stop the convection over time. Just open the bottom drain and fill a five-gallon bucket. Or, you can put a pump on it and forget about it.

 

[deerefanatic]

I purposely piped a 3/4 inch ball vavle into the bottom of my side arm with a t... I can do a fast, hi-pressure blow-down with it that way...

But, I also have a water softener too....

 

[Eric Johnson]

I have a water softener, too, but I still get scale at the bottom of my hw tank. Don't know why. The Kinetico seems to work and I made sure that the line to the hot water heater is softened water.

Nice job on your boiler, BTW, Matt. I've been following your progress and meant to comment, but haven't gotten around to it. The videos look good. And don't sell yourself short on the price. Any decent gasifier these days goes for $6,000 or more. I actually think $8,500 for an outdoor gasification boiler is pretty reasonable, considering what a conventional OWB costs.

 

[deerefanatic]

That's probably true.......... I forget how much everything has gone up these days..... I still keep think that a crappy old OWB should only be $4-5k... LOL!!

Thanks for the compliment....... I'm still working on getting things dialed in.......

 

[Duetech]

Hi Eric,
How old is your hot water heater? Mine is 22 years and I have only had soft water for 10-12 years. Scale is probably all over in the tank. When I put in my side arm I flushed the tank. About two weeks after I got it going I started losing hot water then it just up and quit. I must have flushed twice the junk out of it the second time. It's been working good since then.

I have a water softener, too, but I still get scale at the bottom of my hw tank. Don't know why. The Kinetico seems to work and I made sure that the line to the hot water heater is softened water.

Nice job on your boiler, BTW, Matt. I've been following your progress and meant to comment, but haven't gotten around to it. The videos look good. And don't sell yourself short on the price. Any decent gasifier these days goes for $6,000 or more. I actually think $8,500 for an outdoor gasification boiler is pretty reasonable, considering what a conventional OWB costs.

 

[Duetech]

Hi easternbob,
I have an EKO 40 and use a side arm and I use my boiler all summer to heat my dhw. I have more hot water than I've ever had. A tempering valve is used to prevent scalding and is needed. The thing I find with my side arm is flow is necessary for the convection heat process. If your system is subject to frequent non circulation then you might have a problem with your side arm. Maybe your HVAC guy has seen too many side arms with plugged water ways. Simple annual/biannual flushing will/should keep it functioning with out a flaw. It's just basic thermal dynamicsNo flow/no thermal transfer=no hot water. It's that simple. Kind of bullet proof. It's just the remedy that makes it hard sometimes...Cave2k

Working on the instalation of my EKO 25 and the HVAC guy who is helping me isn't too big on sidearms he thniks I won't get enough heat of of it. Was wondering if the people with sidearms were getting enough DHW to meet the needs of their household. It's just me and my wife so I don't think we'll have a huge demand. Plan is to install a 80 gal elec. hot water heater for use during the summer with a sidearm during the heating season. Will I have enough hot water?
Thanks,
Bob

 

[easternbob]

Thanks to everyone for all the replys. I'm going to go with the 80 gal elec with a side arm. It will save me space, time and money compared to having an indirect and elec.
To those of you who have made your own sidearm did you wind copper wire around in the inside tube to increase surface and turbulance? Any guess if it really produces any extra heat (building a house right now so time is at a premium).
Bob

 

[Vtgent49]

Vaughn has both a single and double coil with electric back-up. The elec. coil only heats the top foot or so, enough for two showers.

(broken link removed to http://www.vaughncorp.com/html/hotstow.html)

Also, you can remove the coil at the bottom for cleaning. The coil is finned and transfers heat completely at almost any flow rate. I have the single coil Vaughn, with a sidearm.

 

[Eric Johnson]

My electric hot water tank is about 2 years old. It's always scaled up. The previous one was gas and didn't scale up nearly as often. Go figure.

I didn't wind anything around my inner tube. Just a plain piece of 3/4-inch copper. You certainly do that (and other things) to increase surface area, but it's not necessary, IME. I've built two or three over the years and they all worked fine.

 

[deerefanatic]

I bought my sidearm (and paid too much for it too! ) but it was made with a smooth inner pipe, and the outside of the inner pipe was run through a pipe threader to leave a grooved finish........

Seems to work ok. I shut the gas heater off last night.... I'll see how long before I'm found out by my mom/sister! LOL!

My 50gal electric tank that has the side arm must have been on city water before I got it. When I was replumbing my sidearm, I looked inside with a flashlight and the inside of the tank is absolutely spotless! There's no scale at the bottom too........

 

[wrench340]

I put a sidearm on a 30 gallon oil fired hwt.I left the aquastat set at 110 and got a luke warm shower,raised the temp up to 160 and it seems to be fine,I also put a bronze 006 pump on the sidearm.

 

[Willman]

Somebody needs to make an ‘ultimate’ hot water tank:

Not an electric back up. But check it out anyway.

http://www.htproducts.com/phoenixsolar.html

Will