Time to label the valves

[peakbagger]

My wood/oil boiler/storage system is complex and was built over the course of a couple of years rather than a clean sheet project. There are a lot of valves, many are isolation valves to work on specific equipment like motorized valves but some are bypass valves from prior versions of the system. Once I got the system working, its been pretty well hands off for at least 15 years. Recently while trying to isolate a leak, I opened a bypass valve that is normally is closed. The system was working but I sure was not getting a lot of heat off my storage. I spent some time this afternoon pulling up an as built and noticed a normally closed valve on the sketch and when I looked at the actual valve it was open. I quickly closed it and the system started working like it used to.

I guess its time to get out the label maker and start labeling the valves and if they are normally open or closed. Direction of flow would be nice but some of the piping has flow in two directions depending on the logic. I have a similar situation on my solar hot water system, lots of isolation valves but some valves that need to be changed operated twice yearly.

An owners manual with a description of operating modes is one of those things I would like to do but not high on the priority list.

 

[hedge wood]

Its the same here. I put the Garn in 2009 and used it that winter. I have no valves labeled. I am the only one that runs the system. A buddy loaded and batch burned a few loads of wood some years back when I had some heart surgery and shoulder surgery. No drawing for my system piping or electrical. There should be as I built the control system for my house, with three furnaces with heat exchangers, domestic and my shop which has floor and a furnace with a heat exchanger in it. Should put that on the to do list. If I die the wife would have some fun figuring it out. She can always just shut it down and burn LP.