Worth every minute of time.........

[heaterman]

That it takes to download and read.

If you are thinking of installing ANY kind of boiler this is must read info. Tons of good information here by one of the masters of the trade.

It's big file so if you're downloading with a land line connection it's going to take a while. Once you get it save it to your computer because it is full of information you'll go back to time and time again.

http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/-/media/Files/EERP/Renewables/Biomass/biomass-hydronics-training.pdf

 

[jebatty]

It would be a good idea for every beginning "boilerman" to read and study this before asking any questions, and for every experienced "boilerman" to review this occasionally. One of the more difficult parts of hydronics is determining flow rates, pump head, sizing pipes and sizing circulators.

 

[Tennman]

HM, this is really excellent. Should be required newbie reading..... "Go read this first." There are Stickies where the link could live or be it's own Sticky. For fun I may build a spreadsheet for boiler sizing based on his equations in the Boiler Sizing section, it would be easy. At this moment I'm piping up his pages 155 and 156.

One thing that surprised me was his recommendation for storage with "modulating" pellet boilers. I'd only read about pellet boilers here and don't recall storage ever used or mentioned. It appears that although the pellet boiler can "modulate" to demand, adding storage adds thermal inertia to the system which reduces modulation cycling. I'm paying attention to pellet boiler discussions because fetching/splitting wood will eventually become difficult and we'll probably supplement or replace our gasser. I was wondering what I'd do with those beautiful storage tanks if I ever went to pellets, but it looks like storage actually improves pellet boiler performance also.

John's Powerpoint is really like Cliff Notes for Hydronics. Be nice to have John drop in here once in a while. Great summary John, thanks HM.

 

[Bob Rohr]

HM, this is really excellent. Should be required newbie reading..... "Go read this first." There are Stickies where the link could live or be it's own Sticky. For fun I may build a spreadsheet for boiler sizing based on his equations in the Boiler Sizing section, it would be easy. At this moment I'm piping up his pages 155 and 156.

One thing that surprised me was his recommendation for storage with "modulating" pellet boilers. I'd only read about pellet boilers here and don't recall storage ever used or mentioned. It appears that although the pellet boiler can "modulate" to demand, adding storage adds thermal inertia to the system which reduces modulation cycling. I'm paying attention to pellet boiler discussions because fetching/splitting wood will eventually become difficult and we'll probably supplement or replace our gasser. I was wondering what I'd do with those beautiful storage tanks if I ever went to pellets, but it looks like storage actually improves pellet boiler performance also.

John's Powerpoint is really like Cliff Notes for Hydronics. Be nice to have John drop in here once in a while. Great summary John, thanks HM.

 

[Bob Rohr]

Looks like that is copyrighted material, noted on the first slide. Might be best to get permission to re-use. A lot of work went into that presentation.

 

[BrotherBart]

Placed on a state website. Hard to see a link opening it to read as copyright infringement.

 

[Tennman]

Hi Larry,


NYSERDA does have permission to post this, and as such, anyone can download it, but I have retained the copyright.


All I would request is that if someone wants to pull information out of it for some other for-profit training purposes, please just acknowledge J. Siegenthaler as the source in a footnote.


My intention is that it can help others with system design concepts.


Thanks for asking.


Sincerely,


John

 

[Tennman]

I should have added above that I asked John for clarification. For me this site is the epitome of non-profit training. Thanks John.

 

[heaterman]

HM, this is really excellent. Should be required newbie reading..... "Go read this first." There are Stickies where the link could live or be it's own Sticky. For fun I may build a spreadsheet for boiler sizing based on his equations in the Boiler Sizing section, it would be easy. At this moment I'm piping up his pages 155 and 156.

One thing that surprised me was his recommendation for storage with "modulating" pellet boilers. I'd only read about pellet boilers here and don't recall storage ever used or mentioned. It appears that although the pellet boiler can "modulate" to demand, adding storage adds thermal inertia to the system which reduces modulation cycling. I'm paying attention to pellet boiler discussions because fetching/splitting wood will eventually become difficult and we'll probably supplement or replace our gasser. I was wondering what I'd do with those beautiful storage tanks if I ever went to pellets, but it looks like storage actually improves pellet boiler performance also.

John's Powerpoint is really like Cliff Notes for Hydronics. Be nice to have John drop in here once in a while. Great summary John, thanks HM.

RE: thermal storage with modulating pellet boilers...........

I would also recommend it when the connected load is low mass, on/off such as a hot water coil in a furnace plenum or a zoned baseboard system with individual loads below the minimum firing rate of the boiler. In those cases, thermal storage, even 40 gallons or so, will smooth out the bumps and give the boiler something to work with while reducing on/off cycles.

When the boiler is connected to high mass loads such as thick concrete slab radiant, we have not seen any need for it whatsoever. At least with the BioWins we have installed.....and again, I'll add that the smallest zone must provide a larger heating load than the lowest output of the boiler. This may not be true with all pellet boilers but I have not seen any advantage in utilizing thermal storage with a Windhager when conditions of the job are as described. It would in fact be redundant IMHO.

Other types of system where storage would be of marginal benefit would be a house full of iron rads, a system using panel rads with TRV's or possibly a system using variable water temps via outdoor reset of system temperature.

 

[goosegunner]

Page 100 picture of the no power dump zone is my boiler room.

So much good information! Now I need to look at ideas to add low temp emitters and finally extend my storage time vs my forced air.

I have 13 cast iron radiators sitting in my pole barn...

I like the idea of the radiant walls for my great room.



gg

 

[Coal Reaper]

that is fantastic

 

[Tennman]

Thanks HM. We'll have storage shortly, so I guess a BioWin would manage the 1000 gal storage between some temp set points for our forced air HX system. Essentially making our BioMass an auxiliary.