Domestic Hot Water off Woodmaster. Need some advice

[Biglurr54]

I have a Woodmaster 4400 heating my house. Its small but old and drafty. I have a 40 gallon electric water heater in the basement. The woodmaster feeds a oil furnace in the basement for regular heat through a plate exhanger. The furnace doesnt have tankless hot water coils in it. My plan is to take the return line on the woodmaster side of the heat exchanger and send it to the water heater and then back down to the boiler. My neighbor tried to do domestic hot water off his woodmaster but plugged up his plate exchanger fast from sediment and build up. He is on a deep well. I am on a spring. Im not sure if I should go with the plate exchanger or a sidearm. Whats your guys experience with them. My spring water is very good. It is only slightly on the hard size. Not enough to have the Culligan man even try to sell me something. I like that the side arms clog free, and work off of a thermo-siphoin. How do the plate exchangers work? so they need a circ pump on the tank side? what size plate exchanger is needed for Domestic hotwater. The house has just two of us in it with a third on the way and hopefully a fourth later on down the road.

 

[Fifelaker]

I have had a sidearm for 9 years with no problems. sure now I said that:bang:

 

[Laird]

I'm on a well with pretty hard water. I have two plate exchangers that I swap out annually and flush one with vinegar while the other is being used.

 

[Perk]

I have both. A 10 plate exchanger for "preheating" the incoming cold water, and a sidearm to keep the water in the tank hot. My reasoning is thus: The plate exchanger only works when the water is flowing,so the water will cool down in the tank after a while unless you run the heater, which is not what we want to do. The sidearm alome will get and maintain a tank full of hot water, but it does not have the capacity to keep up with demand when water is in use. A small inlet plate and a small sidearm together work quite well. Helps to well insulate the tank. I made an inexpensive sidearm with some 3/4" copper pipe and fittings along with some 1 1/4" galvanized for the outer shell. Both are plumbed straight into the 1" pex loop, ahead of the heating equipment with a 3 way bypass valve downstream so that I can use it in the suummertime without heating the house. No additional pump needed. Make sure that the fittings for the exchangers are the same size as your loop pipe so that you don'trestrict your loop flow to the heating exchanger. Also make sure that you get a tempering valve for the domestic hot water outlet because your water heater will be full of water that is the same as your loop temperature (probably in excess of 150 degrees). Sometimes I let the fire go out in the summertime for maintenance or just laziness, and all I have to do is just flip the breaker (electric water heater) back on and I'm back in business with hot water.

Hope this helps - I'm sure that there are many other opinions

 

[Butch(OH)]

Well, I thought I was the only one to run both a side arm and plate Our sidearm would not keep up with 3 teenagers taking showers but probably would be fine now that we are two instead of five. We are on a well with softener and the plate has been on line for now 6th year with no problems.

 

[woodfarmer]

Perk and butch, can you post pics of this system, I'm trying to figure out what your talking about as I'm new to the whole hydronic heating. I have an empyre elite in my shop with a plate heat exchanger to my manifold in the basement. I would like to be able to heat my dhw and use my gas dhw tank as my backup heat source. I also have an older 40 gallon electric hot water tank I would like to use as a storage tank.

 

[Dogsout]

I run soft water to the water heater side of the exchanger, and a 50-50 blend of soft water and distilled water on the burner side. Also have treatment in OWB side. Guess I never gave it a second thought of plugging up my exchanger.

 

[Biglurr54]

I ordered the copper to make the side arm. Im going to make it as big as I can. I like that it continually maintains the temp. As the family grows I will add the plate exchanger. This should be fine for my needs at the time being.

 

[stihly dan]

Why not add an inline storage tank?

 

[bowtechmadman]

I have a hot water store tank on a seperate zone of my hot water system. 50 gallon tank 4 showers are doable and recovery surprisingly fast.

 

[blackdogon57]

I had problems with both hard water and sediment. Put in filter and softener. Also put in 60 gallon electric tank with big sidearm. No more problems and endless hot water. Breaker on hot water tank has never been turned on.