I guess I will start at the begining. I build my home just over 4 years ago. At that time I installed in floor radiant heat throught the home. I installed a 185,000 BTU tankless water heater for both DHW and the radiant. Two years ago, I got tired of filling my 500 gal propane tank on a monthly basis in the winter. Or rather paying for it, so I installled an OWB. This is working out just fine. I have the two systems running together. When the temp falls ( ie. my wife doesn't feed it while i'm gone) in the OWB the tankless water heater picks up the slack. I really want to add water storage to the mix to increase the efficiency of the OWB. I haven't figured out whether I want to add it to the radiant side which is a pressure system or the OWB which is non-pressure? Originaly I wanted to insulate and bury the water tank out next to the wood stove. Now I leaning toward putting it into the basement to heat that space as well. If I put the water storage in the basement I will probably build something in place due to the limited access of getting a propane tank down there. Oh, by the way I just purchased a 5 ton Trane open loop geothermal unit at an auction sale that I want to incorporate into the system as well. That is where I went from scratching my head a little to down right confused. Any help would be greatly appreciated.........I am also considering replacing the OWB with an Orion EKO 60 to further increase efficiancy. Will this be necessary if I incorporate the geothermal unit???
I am thoroughly confused!!! I need some advice!!
- Thread starter mtsjoel
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Welcome to the forum and the boiler room. Lots of good questions.
Storage is better if it's close to the heat load, so I'd be in favor of the basement location. There are folks who have built EPDM lined tanks that are basically small above-ground swimming pools. With these, you can use immersed copper coils as heat exchangers, or use external flat plate heat exchangers with circulators. Copper coils are more expensive initially and typically have lower heat transfer performance than flat plate exchangers, but they consume no energy in operation as they don't require an extra circulator.
An EKO 60 will dramatically reduce your wood consumption and improve your local air quality as compared to an OWB.
Storage is also useful if you're considering adding solar hot water at some future point. I don't have experience with geothermal units, but it seems like storage might offer a useful heat source for the heat pump long after it's too cold to use for heating directly.
Storage is better if it's close to the heat load, so I'd be in favor of the basement location. There are folks who have built EPDM lined tanks that are basically small above-ground swimming pools. With these, you can use immersed copper coils as heat exchangers, or use external flat plate heat exchangers with circulators. Copper coils are more expensive initially and typically have lower heat transfer performance than flat plate exchangers, but they consume no energy in operation as they don't require an extra circulator.
An EKO 60 will dramatically reduce your wood consumption and improve your local air quality as compared to an OWB.
Storage is also useful if you're considering adding solar hot water at some future point. I don't have experience with geothermal units, but it seems like storage might offer a useful heat source for the heat pump long after it's too cold to use for heating directly.
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