Water Storage for Basement with no bulkhead

[antos_ketcham]

Any suggestions out there for water storage for a small basement 26x28. The basement has no bulkhead access. Is the only answer a series of smaller tanks in series? Anyone have any experiences with this?

Pete

 

[Eric Miller]

Pete,

Have you looked at the STSS tanks ((broken link removed to http://www.stsscoinc.com/Default.aspx))? According to their website, they are delivered in a crate 19 inches wide and 53 inches high with a length that varies with the capacity of the tank. I realize that depending on the layout of your house, that may still be an impossible size to navigate into the basement. However, is your basement Finished? If not, and if you have a typical pre-fab staircase, maybe you can temporarily drop the stairs which may allow you to get the tank down there while it is crated. I suggest this because I just removed my basement stairs a couple of weeks ago to do some drywall work. It was very easy, only took about 10 minutes and a sawzall. Went back in just as quick. Might not be practical for you depending on how your house is constructed but thought it might be worth suggesting. Downside to the STSS system appears to be $$$. It seems some others here have had success with building their own tanks, is that an option?

I'm assuming your Greenwood is not in the basement, is there no room where it is located to add a tank?

 

[Grover59]

I built mine out of wood with an epdm liner, I hauled everything for the tank into my cellar from upstairs through a regular door, the biggest thing was 4X8 sheet of plywood.

It works very well, Steve

 

[sixroses]

I built mine out of wood with an epdm liner, I hauled everything for the tank into my cellar from upstairs through a regular door, the biggest thing was 4X8 sheet of plywood.

It works very well, Steve

Steve, could elaborate more on the piping you are using to get water in and out of your tank. Do they all go in high on the tank? How is water pulled back out?
I am going to expand this summer and your tank seems to fit my area best.
Thanks,
Steve

 

[Grover59]

Hi, I used dip tubes, and a flat plate hx, I did it this way because of the cost to make a copper hx for the tank would cost twice what I paid for the materials to build the tank. So far the dip tubes are working very well. Basically I have 4 dip tubes entering my tank from above, two are used to charge the tank and the other two pull the heat out of the tank. I charge the tank by pulling the water from the bottom and sending it to the flat plate hx next to my wood boiler, and then send it back to the top of the tank. The flate plate hx is just hooked up to the wood boiler/oil boiler loop; very simple. I take heat out of the tank by pulling from the top of the take to another flat plate for my domestic hot water and then it continues on to a modine heater that I micky moused in some duct work to send heat to the house, now this is temporary I will be installing radiant heat this summer and get rid of the forced hot air. This set up gives me a lot of flexability, I can heat the house with the baseboard or the forced hot air or both at the same time. If I want I could reverse the flow on the dip tubes that charge the tank and pull heat back out of the tank and into the boiler loop, and then use the baseboard to heat the house. The problem with that is baseboard works best at 160 and above, and my tank temp may be anywhere from 145 to 175.

The tank has made my life a lot easier I can build a fire when I want, and just let it go until it shuts down, I have a timer on the thing. Like last night when I got home the house was at about 65 my wife turned the it up to 70, the wood boiler was not running so the circulator on the tank kicks in to the modine heater micky mouse system I have, this will heat the central part of the house pretty good, up to 70. Now I just go down stairs and set the timer for about 4 hours and throw some wood in the boiler, probably 6 split pieces. Once the boiler loop gets up to about 180 and if we are still calling for heat upstairs the circulator on the oil boiler will start and push hot water to the baseboard and heat the house more evenly. Now once the thermastat upstairs is satisfied, and the boiler loop reaches 190 then the circulator to charge the tank starts and dumps heat there, the wood boiler will not shut down until the timer shuts it down. It is really very simple and works very well, I can build a fire and walk away.

One thing to consider I am using regular circ pumps for this open loop system and they are prone to premature corrosion. I should be using bronze however they are more expensive, I will be changing these out this summer.

Steve

 

[sixroses]

Steve, how does a taco "pull" water. I thought they could only push what was fed to them from upstream. Did you start a siphon in the line and just let gravity feed the pump? That seems to be my stumbling block.
Steve

 

[steam man]

I will testify that Maine's system is just what he says and it works. Probably about as simple as you can get. The tank is low and the pump is low but the pipes go up high by the ceiling. I just imagine the pump uses the water in the line that hasn't drained back out when off to get the loop going again. I am only guessing here. I would think a low differential check valve used as a foot valve in the suction line would prevent loss of prime. I will say he should be concerned if he ran out of quarters for his boiler. He'll have to explain that. Definately one of a kind.

 

[Grover59]

Yes steam man has seen the setup, when I first decided to do the dip tubes this was my only real concern I did not know if it would work. When I piped the thing up I knew that I had to put the pumps as low as possible so that they remained wet and under some head. The flat plate hx is basically laying on the basement floor it is setting on a 2x4, the pump that charges the tank is only 2 inches above the hx and the pump pushes the water through the hx. The pump that I use on this loop is a variable speed grondfos with a built in check valve. The pipe on the suction side of this pump goes all the way to the ceiling and then over to the tank which is about 10 feet away, and then drops down through the top of the tank to about 5 inches from the bottom. The discharge side of the pump pushes into the hx downward through the hx and out again all the way to the ceiling and then over to the tank and also drops down through the top to about 3 or 4 inches below the level of the water.

The other loop is exactly the same only in reverse, I put hose taps on the suction side of each loop at the tank so that I could prime each loop, I also include 2 gate valves to isolate the tank when I prime the loops. On the loop that pulls heat out of the tank I used a Taco pump which did not have a check valve, when I started it up, that loop would actually thermo siphon in reverse and push heat into the house, I had to install another check valve at the tank to stop this from happening.

Steve

 

[antos_ketcham]

Pete,

Have you looked at the STSS tanks ((broken link removed to http://www.stsscoinc.com/Default.aspx))? According to their website, they are delivered in a crate 19 inches wide and 53 inches high with a length that varies with the capacity of the tank. I realize that depending on the layout of your house, that may still be an impossible size to navigate into the basement. However, is your basement Finished? If not, and if you have a typical pre-fab staircase, maybe you can temporarily drop the stairs which may allow you to get the tank down there while it is crated. I suggest this because I just removed my basement stairs a couple of weeks ago to do some drywall work. It was very easy, only took about 10 minutes and a sawzall. Went back in just as quick. Might not be practical for you depending on how your house is constructed but thought it might be worth suggesting. Downside to the STSS system appears to be $$$. It seems some others here have had success with building their own tanks, is that an option?

I'm assuming your Greenwood is not in the basement, is there no room where it is located to add a tank?

Eric - can you repost the link? I can't open that one. Thank.

 

[Eric Miller]

Sorry Pete, for some reason I'm not getting thread updates in my email. Anyway, I just tried the address too and it looks like their is a problem with their site - hopefully temporary. You can google "STSS CO INC" just to verify you are using the right url.

 

[antos_ketcham]

I talked to the STSS folks today since I couldn't pull up their site. Good conversation. They tell me that with my Greenwood 100 that I will need 650 gallons of storage. I was thinking I would need more than that.

What does the boiler room contingent think?

It would be good if I didn't need more than that because the 650 tank is 66" in diameter and I have a small basement. But I also don't want to spend the money and the effort and not get what I need.

Pete