Pressurized storage schematic needed

[VtRv]

I'm looking for a schematic for hooking up a gasifier to my existing gas boiler with 1 or 2 pressurized storage tanks (500 Gal LP Tank). I know I've seen some on here before but I can't for the life of me find them. If anyone has one they are willing to share I'd appreciate the help. I need to get it to my installer for pricing. Thanks.

 

[jebatty]

Did you look at the first post on this forum?

 

[sinnian]

take a look at Nofissil's signature

 

[VtRv]

Did you look at the first post on this forum?

I looked at the first post and see one schematic with a buffer tank and one with a nonpressurized tank. Is the hook up the same reguardless of the type of storage?

 

[Nofossil]

Here's a simple schematic - there are many ways to do this. What do you have in place already?

 

[jebatty]

I need to get it to my installer for pricing.

If it was me, I would be at least a little bit concerned that my "installer" did not know what they were doing. You should not have to tell your installer how to do the install, whether or not storage, multiple boilers, etc.

 

[VtRv]

Thank you Nofossil, that is exactly what I was looking for.

Jebatty, thank you for the reply. My installer has put in several wood boilers and hooked them up to existing gas/oil boilers. He hasn't hooked up any with storage however.

 

[Geno]

This is a little different but i've hooked a few up this way and worked great,

 

[Nofossil]

This is a little different but i've hooked a few up this way and worked great,

This brings up a question I've had for longer than I've been on the forum. It looks like you're circulating all hot water through the oil boiler. If so, please help me understand why. I've seen installations like that, and I don't understand the reason unless the DHW comes off a coil in the oil boiler. This shows an indirect DHW tank, so I'm baffled.

 

[MrEd]

Any estimate on what you are losing by circulating heat thru the oil burner? Not sure if it is a big deal or not - just want to understand better.

 

[Geno]

I knew my drawing would illicit a response because of the configuration. I've seen the posts here advocating not running through the boiler and I really couldn't understand them. I lower the upper and lower limits on my fuel oil boiler so that I can use it for a backup for when the temps get low in the storage when I'm away. That way it's possible to take a vacation during the winter without having someone come over to feed the boiler. I do most of my heating with cast iron radiators that I've gathered for the last 20 years. I still can't resist buying another one when I see one that's interesting and the price is right. What is a boiler but an insulated cast iron radiator? I've heard the arguement that the heat just goes up the flue from the boiler, but if the burner isn't running, there's no infusion of air into the boiler and thus no big flow of heat up the chimney. If I sealed up one of my radiators with insulation and made a 6" hole in that insulation, I really wouldn't lose much heat that way. The cast iron of the boiler stays hot for a long time when heated up, just like my radiators, so it acts like a small buffer tank for the heat zone's. All in all it's the simplest way to keep the fuel oil boiler in the loop as a back-up without adding a number of additional relays. Very shortly I plan on adding 2 banks of 30 evacuated tube collectors running to a heat exchanger in the storage tank and heating the water with solar as well. As you know, a domestic coil is almost useless when boiler temps are anything less than 180* so an indirect water heater is pretty much a foregone conclusion.

 

[verne]

Geno , I am in the process of hooking up my boiler. I have a diagram similar to yours . I have been trying to understand the pros and cons of hooking up my supply and return to the oil boiler return or suppl to supply return to return. also When I look at my control limits on my boiler my low only goes to 180. do I need to change that honeywell box or should I just put a switch in to turn off just the burner, and manually turn it back on when I go away?

 

[Nofossil]

I've always had my boilers plumbed in parallel (as in the schematic I posted above). When I originally added my wood boiler, I had a manual switch to select wood or oil as the heat source.

Next, I used an aquastat on the wood boiler to disable the oil whenever the wood was hot.

Eventually, I went over the edge and added a whole control system.

To me, it's simpler and more efficient to have the boilers installed in parallel. I can isolate and even remove either without affecting the rest of the system. When I need heat, only one boiler has to get up to temp.

In my system, I also have only one pump operating at a time. Note that my storage is not connected as in the schematic I posted - I don't have pressurized storage.

 

[chuck172]

Geno, In your drawing, are you feeding the storage tank through a 3-way zone valve? That would either feed the oil boiler first and bypass the tank and when the oil boiler is satisfied circulate through the storage tank.

 

[Geno]

Hi Chuck. If you did it that way using only one circ pump from the EKO and a zone valve, when the EKO was out of fuel and that circ pump shut down, you wouldn't be able to pull hot water from the storage tank to the fuel boiler. If however, you had two pumps with integrated check, the EKO pump would run constant when it was up to temp either supplying the fuel oil boiler or filling the tank while on the burn cycle. When the burn cycle was over, the fuel boiler pump could then continue to pull from the storage tank alone when the EKO had finished it's burn and that pump was shut down. One pump is not controlled by the other and work independently. The EKO pump works off the EKO controller while the fuel oil boiler pump runs from a strap-on aquastat on the supply feed of the fuel boiler.

 

[chuck172]

You guys here are real sharp. Please type slower so I can understand better.
What tells the EKO to feed either the tank or the oil boiler? When the Fuel boiler is calling for HW, what tells the EKO to by-pass the storage tank and heat the oil boiler?

 

[Geno]

Each pump has a check valve built into it. Ergo: integrated check.