Placement of circulation pumps

[herbert]

i am starting to plumb in my Taylor 750 (finally)
Should the circulation pump(s) be located at the stove on the return line side ? Also am thinking of putting filters in the lines at the furnace on the outgoing lines because of the HIGH iron we have in our water.

 

[jebatty]

I assume you know whether you have iron particles or dissolved iron and its concentration. A sediment filter usually takes care of iron particles; dissolved iron, depending on its concentration, can be more difficult. Following website has info, might be helpful to you.

(broken link removed to http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/housing/356-481/356-481.html)

There likely is an ideal location for a circ. I currently use one at the boiler on the return line. Some say on the supply line. I also in the past used one on the supply line 300' from the boiler and it seemed to work fine.

 

[herbert]

I have an Iron Curtain system in my water supply system but i still get some iron. I think i may need to fill stove , 600 gallons, in phases so as to let the iron curtain system regenerate between water draws.

 

[herbert]

I noticed on the description of the pumps i ordered it said 3 speed. what is the purpose of having 3 speeds and what speed do most people wire them for ?

 

[jebatty]

You'll need help from others on this. No experience. But I suspect it is to achieve the desired flow rate given boiler output, heating demand, and head.

 

[603doug]

Fill the stove from your filtered water, I drill wells and install softeners etc. I have hard water and some iron so I filled mine on the filtered side and now just top it off. Depending on your water system how much water you can run at one time before it will have to regenerate, if you install cartridge filters they may will reduce your flow rate on your circulators

 

[pybyr]

beware iron bacteria

I don't know much about them, except that I grew up in an area where all of the wells had a naturally high iron content (to the point that there had once been a booming pre-civil-war era industry in mining and smelting "bog iron" that basicaly was stuff that had precipitated right out of the water

some places' wells had a lot of iron, but it stayed in solution, which did not do a lot of harm

other places' wells had "iron bacteria" which basically translated to orange slime, in huge abundance, on everything that the water passed through or came in contact with. people treated it with dread, because once you had it in your well, it was apparently very hard to get rid of

Apparently these critters' metabolism works by metabolizing iron and reacting it with oxygen

Iron dissolved in water, by itself, seems like it'd do little harm to a heating system- which is, after all, largely made of iron. It might even protect the system.

Iron bacteria, on the other hand, seem like they could do a lot of harm to iron & steel heating systems- if they can survive the temperatures, which I do not know

 

[herbert]

i have had an OWB at my production shop for 5 years that was filled with water that was not filtered by the iron curtain i have in my home. We have changed the filter cartridge yearly and the cartridge has been slimmey with rusty goop. It has been bad enough to hamper water circulating.

 

[deerefanatic]

Yes, our well in Michigan had Iron bacteria.... Ate right through the galvinised riser pipe in the well casing within less than 20 years....... From the inside out........

Run your water through a water softner... Your stove will thank you........

 

[mtfallsmikey]

Mine has some brown gooey stuff as well....ran my fill thru a carbon filter. Use a Y-strainer before the circs.

 

[herbert]

what is a Y strainer ?

 

[MrEd]

An example "Wye" strainer: http://www.pexsupply.com/product_dtl.asp?pID=5121&brand=Watts&cID=705

 

[herbert]

I need to put one of my heat exchangers in a position that would have my inlets at the top of the exchanger----does it make a difference ?

 

[hkobus]

I noticed on the description of the pumps i ordered it said 3 speed. what is the purpose of having 3 speeds and what speed do most people wire them for ?

No special wiring required, all the same but have a switch in the circ. to select the speed.