In series our paralell

[Dino57]

Iam running my hot water from the boiler to a side arm dhw heater and to a plenum heat exchanger,Am I better off to put in a tee and supply each exchanger directly from the boiler? Or can i go thru the side arm first the put the out line over to the plenum heat exchanger.If i use the tee and the pump is 10 gallons a minute will it maintain 10 gallons each way or does it drop to 5 gallons each way.? confused

Thank

Dean

 

[Eric Johnson]

A sidearm draws very little heat most of the time, since it tends to get the water heater up to temp and keep it there. So I wouldn't hesitate to run everything through the sidearm first. You might want to plumb in a bypass just to give yourself some flexibility. In my system, all the water goes through the sidearm before it goes into the zones. I have plenty of hot water and no problem getting enough heat into the house.

Be sure to insulate the sidearm, however. It's hard to cover up all that beautiful copper and fancy sweating, but it will heat your basement if you don't wrap it.