Hello all--
My house currently has a ducted warm air heating system. I'm getting an Econoburn gasifier and will be putting in some sort of storage. In the near-term, my plan is to put a coil in the duct above my existing oil hot air furnace, and then use that to deliver the heat to the house [I realize the advantages to trying to eventually go with radiant, but don't think I can "bite off" the whole transition all at once in time for this coming heating system]
I've been studying the posts and diagrams here, and in other on-line sources, about circulators, valves, primary/secondary arrangements, etc., and am making progress in getting a sense of it all, but since a lot of that is focused on integrating wood boilers in with existing oil-based all-hydronic systems, I'm not quite "grokking" how to best arrange the flow routing what I am contemplating. When I "fall back" to oil ( if away for an extended period, etc) the oil furnace will simply deliver hot air, as it does now, so there is no need to "integrate" any plumbing for it into the gasifier's arrangements (I realize I will need to "stage" thermostats so that they all get along).
What I want to achieve is a situation where the gasifier and storage work together, and the fan coil can draw from the storage when there are BTUs available there, but at the same time, have an arrangement where the fan coil can also draw direct from the boiler, as a priority over storage, if the house is cold and the storage is "empty"-- so that getting heat from the gasifier to the house does not need to await "recharge" of the storage.
It seems to me that there must be a relatively simple way to plumb such an arrangement, without needing a whole bunch of separate/ redundant circulators and valves, but so far, I'm not managing to envision how it'd need to be arranged.
Ideally, it would be great if whatever "backbone" of circulators, loops, etc., I implement now for the fan-coil could also then also evolve into the beginnings of a system for later radiant aspects (which might be implemented gradually with the ducts still handling parts of the house or certain time periods) but that's not necessarily critical if the simplest and best way to run the fan coil will need to be a stand-alone compared to later radiant implementation.
Thanks, all, for the knowledge and willingness to share it.
Trevor
My house currently has a ducted warm air heating system. I'm getting an Econoburn gasifier and will be putting in some sort of storage. In the near-term, my plan is to put a coil in the duct above my existing oil hot air furnace, and then use that to deliver the heat to the house [I realize the advantages to trying to eventually go with radiant, but don't think I can "bite off" the whole transition all at once in time for this coming heating system]
I've been studying the posts and diagrams here, and in other on-line sources, about circulators, valves, primary/secondary arrangements, etc., and am making progress in getting a sense of it all, but since a lot of that is focused on integrating wood boilers in with existing oil-based all-hydronic systems, I'm not quite "grokking" how to best arrange the flow routing what I am contemplating. When I "fall back" to oil ( if away for an extended period, etc) the oil furnace will simply deliver hot air, as it does now, so there is no need to "integrate" any plumbing for it into the gasifier's arrangements (I realize I will need to "stage" thermostats so that they all get along).
What I want to achieve is a situation where the gasifier and storage work together, and the fan coil can draw from the storage when there are BTUs available there, but at the same time, have an arrangement where the fan coil can also draw direct from the boiler, as a priority over storage, if the house is cold and the storage is "empty"-- so that getting heat from the gasifier to the house does not need to await "recharge" of the storage.
It seems to me that there must be a relatively simple way to plumb such an arrangement, without needing a whole bunch of separate/ redundant circulators and valves, but so far, I'm not managing to envision how it'd need to be arranged.
Ideally, it would be great if whatever "backbone" of circulators, loops, etc., I implement now for the fan-coil could also then also evolve into the beginnings of a system for later radiant aspects (which might be implemented gradually with the ducts still handling parts of the house or certain time periods) but that's not necessarily critical if the simplest and best way to run the fan coil will need to be a stand-alone compared to later radiant implementation.
Thanks, all, for the knowledge and willingness to share it.
Trevor
