Please review my design

[Zeppy]

Edit: Perhaps most of you knew this and that's why I didn't get much feedback. The individual that I asked to draft my design does not want his plans posted here so I have removed them.
Some general words of encouragement would be helpful as I am getting real close to selling the boiler and my wood and hiring the oil man.


Hello,
I hired somebody to draft a system design for my Econoburn 150. He is not local and will not be installing it. Most of it is over my head however I do have a question about the storage piping. One of my overall concepts is that I want to be sure that I can heat directly from the boiler without heating the 500gallons. I think it is the Tarm diagrams that show just one inlet and one outlet. When the tank is warm the flow is reversed through the tank. When the tank is not warm it is bypassed completely. The attached layout has two inlets and two outlets. Will this hamper heating the zones when the storage is cold? If yes, can that be mitigated by plumbing the supply from the boiler and the supply for the zones closely at the top of the tank?

Any and all comments welcome

Thanks
Travis

 

[ewdudley]

As drawn, when tank is depleted and the wood boiler is restarted the oil burner will go off-line as soon as the top-of-storage aquastat sees hot water. Since hot water rises that should be soon enough, but for faster response you could eliminate the two ports at the top of storage and join the wood-boiler-to-storage circuit to the storage-to-oil-burner circuit with a cross that goes down to a single port to top of storage and up to the aquastat that had been in the top of the tank. Top of tank air vent would move to a tee nearby.

Drawing calls out storage tank as being elevated. Ideally bottom of storage would be above top of wood boiler, otherwise, depending on the height of the stratification line, hot water will fall through the wood boiler as it is cooled by the wood boiler when it is off-line. Else consider a low-resistance checkvalve, see useful tidbits sticky.

Storage-to-oil-boiler circulator runs without regard to mixing. Consider a thermostatic diverter valve to route hot water back to oil boiler rather than down to bottom of storage.

May have missed it, but don't recall what causes storage-to-oil-burner circ to run when only load demand is DHW.

 

[henfruit]

Zeppy, Those drawings look familar?Why dont you ask the person who drew them your questions? He should have your answers.

 

[Zeppy]

Henfruit,
yes those plans would look familiar to you. I sent him an email with the same questions last night when I posted here. I am just looking to get other opinions.

 

[henfruit]

Zeppy you called me a couple months back.I have tried to reach you but you have never returned my calls? Travis Royce

 

[stee6043]

Just a quick tip, Zeppy - if you paid someone to develop plans for your system you in fact OWN those plans once payment is rendered. It's called work for hire. You can do with those plans as you please up to and including wallpapering your bathroom walls with them. If you did NOT pay for it all bets are off and you should certainly respect the request of the author.

I hope you didn't pay much. I've seen boat loads of people post plans on this site for review and there is a lot of good feedback to be had free of charge. Not to mention the sticky "simplest...solution" that has a fair amount of detail included...also free of charge.

Best of luck to you. Hopefully you and your contractor can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement regarding your system design...

 

[Gasifier]

Zeppy,

It is a lot to go through, I know. I just finished getting my system on line. It cost me a lot of time to research, then a lot of money to buy everything and pay to get it installed. But it is working great and I love it. The oil man will not be called for a long time. I am heating my hot water with it and everything. Hang in there man. You never know what is going to happen with oil. Next month, next year, two and half years from now it could be $6 a gallon. There are to many variables around the world today to be stuck depending on oil. Hang in there, you will be glad you did in the end.

 

[Zeppy]

Thanks, I neded that!

 

[__dan]

testing photo

Go ahead and have at it. I am piping this now. I would love to know what I am doing wrong. The circs marked VAR, I have Tekmar injection pump controls for. Planning to have a smart relay to call equipment, looking at the AB micro 810. Looking for tips on how to read temps into the micro 810.

Interesting piping note. I drew the piping to have a short straight cycle from the oil boiler to the DHW indirect tank for the summer time. The oil boiler should be ale to go straight to the Gold Plus indirect without going anywhere else, especially up to the primary loop. The pri loop is only for wood fired heating.

Big Thank You to Chris at TarmUSA. It's a beautful unit

 

[Gasifier]

Zeppy,

Please do yourself a big favor, read the Simplest Pressurized Storage System Design sticky that Nofossil posted. The most important part for me was the theory of operation. I did not even use the same components in my system as he has layed out. But I used his theory of operation to explain to (and have my installers read and understand) how I wanted my system to work. They had installed many boiler systems, but had not installed a Wood Gun with storage added on to an Oil Boiler. But they did good work. They had just finished installing an H.S. Tarm boiler with no storage. I paid $900 in labor for them(30 hours at $30/hr). A lot of money, yes. But, I have my system done and it is working good so far. Maybe you should find yourself a good boiler man and pay him to install it. Sometimes you can find a couple of guys who are just starting out, yet have enough experience and technical know how, unlike me, and will do a job a little cheaper than the guys who have to get $60/hour for their labor.

I know a lot of times people want to save money, and I am all for that, believe me. But I have done a lot of different type of residential construction stuff and know that I did not want anything to do with hooking this system up. I am not a plumber or electrician. Sometimes it is just best to pay the guys who know what they are doing to do it. Then you can sit back and enjoy. Good luck, and any questions I might be able to answer for you about my experience with going through an install, let me know. I will defer you to others here for most of the technical stuff though. Good luck. And ask lots of questions on here. The only foolish question is one that is not asked. Just ask some of the guys on here. I have made myself look foolish many times! :lol:

 

[Clarkbug]

Zeppy and Dan (not sure if this thread is digressing or how that works out...)

Just curious, but any reason why you wouldnt follow the Bioheat PT2 diagram? http://www.woodboilers.com/uploads/public/PressureTank(PT2).pdf

Froling should be a great unit, and as Gasifier said, hang on. There is a lot to read and figure out here on the forums. Heck, I have been at this the better part of a year and I dont have any of my piping done....

 

[__dan]

Zeppy and Dan (not sure if this thread is digressing or how that works out...)

Just curious, but any reason why you wouldnt follow the Bioheat PT2 diagram? http://www.woodboilers.com/uploads/public/PressureTank(PT2).pdf

Froling should be a great unit, and as Gasifier said, hang on. There is a lot to read and figure out here on the forums. Heck, I have been at this the better part of a year and I dont have any of my piping done....

The Tarm plumbing diagrams are recommended. They have the experience. Actually the whole sales package I received was the best document package I've about ever seen. I'm pretty sure the storage on a constant short loop to the boiler is necessary, as shown.

My experience is, I bid boiler wiring for schools for ten years. The guys I bid with, I've seen a lot of steam and water volcanoes. I could be wrong, it happens, but I have a pretty high hit rate at the end of the job. I'm sure I will see changes before everything is plumbed.

I wanted a few things in particular:

For DHW in the summer, I wanted the oil boiler straight to the indirect tank with one circ. I've seen the standby loss to maintain is ~ 1/2 gallon of oil per day with no demand. Right now I run a manual switch and turn it on to make a tank of DHW, then turn it off. I have very low oil consumption this way, no flue gas condensation from the constant cold starts.

For the backup oil heat, I wanted the minimum of pipe heated and trying to avoid ghost flows to the wood boiler side.

The house is set up with poured concrete HW radiant and I get pretty good storage and ride through just with the slabs, very well insulated. The routine I see coming is smaller burns, partial load, skipping days, and letting the house cool so there is a good load when firing and charging the slabs first. I actually want to burn just an armload of wood and get instant heat to the slabs without maybe also bringing the tank up to temp. I don't know. The boiler output may be so much that demand from the slabs are not enough. I'm hoping the Froling will come up to temp and then turn down, modulate, the firing rate to balance output with the load just from the slabs. I will have to see what happens and call the storage tank like another zone. The basement slab runs continuous as a load when firing.

With the radiant, there's a lower temp HW reset loop on the drawing.

One thing I see on my drawing is I need too many circs to make it work. I'm sure it is overbuilt, I just don't know where to make the cut. I have to review the check locations also.

I've been reading here a while. The forum gets the credit for making the sale. Everything I've seen so far on the Froling, the love is well deserved.

 

[maple1]

I don't think it should take 1/2 gallon of oil per day to maintain an indirect tank with no use. I think Buderus advertises their tank loses only 1/4 degree per hour (my father put one in this summer). Even at 1/2 degree per hour, you would only need to fire once a day. I guess it would depend on how good your tank was though. If you zoned it the same as a heating zone, you could use one circ for all your eating - space & domestic - would just need another zone valve.

 

[__dan]

I don't think it should take 1/2 gallon of oil per day to maintain an indirect tank with no use. I think Buderus advertises their tank loses only 1/4 degree per hour (my father put one in this summer). Even at 1/2 degree per hour, you would only need to fire once a day. I guess it would depend on how good your tank was though. If you zoned it the same as a heating zone, you could use one circ for all your eating - space & domestic - would just need another zone valve.

I don't have measured data. I see the boiler fires ~ three times daily for ~ 10 minutes to maintain. At .75 gallons of oil / hr nozzle, that's ~ .375 gallons / day. Plus, if the tank is always on, demand will call the boiler for another cycle, using the HW in the tank and making another tank of HW for standby. It uses the oil. It takes 20 minutes of firing to satisfy the 40 gallon Gold Plus indirect from a cold start, cold tank. After firing I turn the boiler off so it does not make the second tank for standby, then draw load from the indirect storage. It's a lot less oil, ~ 150 gallons for the year is in the ballpark. It's not just the tank loss, it's the cost of bringing the WGO-3 boiler up to the point where it will make HW. I am chopping minutes of firing on every cycle.

I hate doing things twice. That's why I overbuild. I have a plan to automate the process. I have a recirc line on the DHW, not connected, ready to go. I plan to have low voltage pushbuttons in the baths and kitchen for HW. This will call the oil DHW and HW recirc pump for a timed run. You will have to wait 20 minutes for the HW to be ready, not a deal breaker. When the tank aquastat is satisified, it will wait for another manual HW pushbutton call before making another tank of HW. Of course when firing with wood, the DHW will be always on, first priorority

There will be toggle switches in the living space, oil DHW: off / auto, oil heat: off / auto, an indicator light that says 'burn some wood'. There's a lot of savings in turning the oil DHW off