Lots of questions about new boiler install

[Tank71]

Good evening everyone. I am in need of some expertise on a new gasser install.

Ok here is where I will start, we are going to be building a new home in the next year or two. In the mean time on our property I have built a 42'x80' pole building that is insulated and heated by a propane boiler that is doing a great job and is very efficient. I have 1350 square ft of this pole building finished off as living quarters right now. This is where we will live until we build our home. Right now the building is set up with 2 zones for heat, living quarters is one zone and the remainder of the building is storage that I heat at 45 degrees. The boiler heats the DHW and the floors in this building. Hydronic in floor heat will be installed throughout the new home as well.

With that said, here is my plan...I am going to build a separate building to house the boiler, store wood and water storage as well.

- I want to install the boiler before we build our home, will this cause me any issues properly sizing a boiler to heat the pole building (now) and the future home a year or two from now?

- The boiler would be placed about 100' from pole building and about 100' from the future home. I would like to put water storage by the boiler in the out building? Is that acceptable? Or is better to put storage in each of buildings that I will be heating?

- There are quite a few different brands of boilers out there are there any that are significantly better than others?

- Are there companies that can design a system specifically for this application or do I need to work with a local HVAC contractor?

I probably gave too much info but wanted to make sure you knew what I was up against.

Thanks in advance for all your time.

Regards,

Tank71

 

[Buzz Saw]

Tank71, I'm in an almost identical situation, however I'm going to be renovating an old farm house. Hopefully the experts can kill two birds with one stone. I have read that a lot on here about doing a heat load or something like that to properly size the system. So I'm not sure if you should do the boiler first or last, however if you make it "too big" I suspect that you will just be able to go longer between burns. Experts what do you say?

 

[Boil&Toil]

If you can manage it, heat storage in the buildings you are heating means any heat lost from storage is lost to the building being heated. But, if the storage is sufficiently well-insulated (which means, a LOT), that does not have to matter, much. I'm also leaning towards storage in the boiler shack, preferably above the boilers (makes for an easy dump zone, and perhaps also a crude fire-control method [sprinkler] if it all goes in a handbasket.) Possibly with the boilers in the basement and the storage on the first floor - which will have to be quite the floor, or at least have a nice set of columns supporting certain parts of it.

Insulating the pipelines is a big deal, especially for such a long run, but fairly well covered here in the stickies - beware of cheesy manufactured products that are not well-insulated and lack sufficient insulation between the the lines - - they can act like heat exchangers and make it very difficult to move heat, as the hot line warms the return, and the return line cools the hot line, and you have "mysterious" lack of heat out the far end. Blueboard and sprayfoam are your friends here, and be sure there's plenty of insulation between lines as well as from lines to soil. If in doubt, (heck, even if not in doubt) add extra PEX lines, and (per the linear expansion and/or shrinkage threads running now) be sure to have expansion/contraction loops at the ends of the lines.

I don't think a lot of HVAC contractors are well-versed in this. If any are, folks here may be able to point you at someone in your area.

With storage, boiler sizing when the house isn't built yet is not so much of an issue if storage sizing is adequate.

Main thing is take the effort now, when it's least expensive, to design the house so it's easy to heat, well insulated, etc.

 

[Vizsla]

When it comes to standard boilers, NG,LP & fuel oil , most of our dealers will do a full engineered radiant design for your house. Since some have taken advantage of this free service, the homeowner never gets the important details or plans until equipment has been purchased.
But if you have a good RPA rep in your area you could hire to have a set of plans done. Or, It also might be available thru a quality wood boiler company as well.
I see econoburn had John Siegenthaler do some example designs on their site.