Just became a OWB owner last night...

[nstueve]

I would not even consider using the Chimney on your house, recipe for disaster and fire. It will be filled with creosote in no time.

The pumps can be in your house if you chose to have them in a warm place incase you ever need to change them.
gg

10-4. Didn't even consider putting pumps inside but I suppose that protects them from freezing and breaking as well... Would also make for easier maintenance of the pumps.

 

[goosegunner]

When I had a OWB for 1 year, I had the pumps in my attached garage where my underground entered. I have a primary secondary manifold. The primary pump would run 24/7 from the boiler, through them manifold and back to boiler. The secondary was for the heat load, when my house called for heat it starts the secondary pump and sends water to the house coil. In the summer I have a secondary legs for the pool.

gg

 

[bigdaddyjak]

I guess I missed the part where he said if he was using water to water ,or water to air??

 

[sam-tip]

I think it depends on which pumps you have. There are many versions of Taco pumps. Some are for pushing up greater distances than others. But you must keep them primed. You can loose flow if you get an air pocket. That is why most boilers have them at the boiler.

 

[H-Ranch]

I think it depends on which pumps you have. There are many versions of Taco pumps. Some are for pushing up greater distances than others. But you must keep them primed. You can loose flow if you get an air pocket. That is why most boilers have them at the boiler.

I think the other reason most of the pumps are at the boiler is because commercial OWB's are sold as a complete assembly. If the customer has to mess with mounting, wiring, and plumbing on his own then they may go to the competitor that has it all in one self-contained unit.

Mine, however, is in the basement where it's warm and dry if I ever need to service it.

 

[Oxford]

Although I have deep reservations about OWBs, I hope yours works well for you. As you plan your system, I encourage you to invest $20 in a book called "Pumping Away" by Dan Holohan. An earlier poster recommended primary-secondary pumping, and I heartily agree. I do quite a bit of hydronic work, and it would be rare indeed to see a system not set up this way in my world. Most OWB manufacturers do not mention this method, but I have installed a few for friends and always do it this way, and the systems work quite well. It's a few more pieces, but the functionality is really improved.


Also, a previous poster mentioned getting a larger pump because his heat loss was too large across his heat exchanger. Unless it's more than 20 degrees, I would never increase the size of my pump. Increasing pump speed increases frictional head exponentially, greatly increasing pump energy usage. Look into the new Grundfos smart pumps. They're really slick, and have some inbuilt logic capabilities that would adapt well to your use, I think. I hope that doesn't count as advertising, as I'm not selling anything and don't work for them.

Good luck, and don't put it on your house chimney.

 

[StihlFroling]

My heat loss was on the underground lines from boiler to house. 185 out of boiler and 172 where it comes in the house. So the bigger pump on high speed fixed the heat loss. So now it's not loosing the heat underground like it was.

 

[nstueve]

I just got reminded yesterday why I bought this boiler...

250gal LP x 1.82/gal = $455

Not bad but not good either. 800-850 gallons for 125-130 days (and we were completely out). Not to mention we kept the house at 55*-62* all winter long. Burrrr!

Another thing I was going to ask... LP hot water heater (AO Smith brand). I have to crank it up to 9 out of ten on the water heat to get real hot water. By real hot water I mean just hot enough to make steam during a shower and you might come out a little red from it being nice and hot. Water was marginally warm on #7. Is this normal for LP water heat? We are thinking of getting an electric hot water heater when we put in the side arm water heater in...

 

[sam-tip]

Might have sentiment in water heater. Should drain some water out of bottom every year. Plus in winter the cold water is extra cold. It takes more hot water to feel hot.

Sent from my SCH-R950 using Tapatalk

 

[Iska3]

Once you get your OWB connected and a plate exghanger hooked up for the hot water things will look a little better for you. Drain your old water heater and make sure it's cleaned of sentiment in water if nothing else it will work for extra storage. If you like your water really hot, you'll need the extra storage with a sidearm. Think about a 10 plate exchanger for your hot water... I heat our water with the OWB using scrap and punky wood in the summer. Going on 5 years now, not even sure if the water heater works anymore

 

[nstueve]

Once you get your OWB connected and a plate exghanger hooked up for the hot water things will look a little better for you. Drain your old water heater and make sure it's cleaned of sentiment in water if nothing else it will work for extra storage. If you like your water really hot, you'll need the extra storage with a sidearm. Think about a 10 plate exchanger for your hot water... I heat our water with the OWB using scrap and punky wood in the summer. Going on 5 years now, not even sure if the water heater works anymore

I'm pretty sure I'll be letting the gas or electric take over for the summer. Keeping 400 gallons hot just for water heat won't be cheap or easy. Later down the road I might consider running a solar water heater in. We still need propane for our stove top and clothes dryer anyhow. We'll fill our 1000 gal LP tank before each winter anyhow since LP will be the backup heat.

 

[sam-tip]

What I have heard in the summer for hot water you just burn a small fire every three days in the boiler. If you still want electric just install a bypass or turn off the taco pumps in the summer. A bypass make it easy to switch out parts if something breaks.

Sent from my SCH-R950 using Tapatalk

 

[Oxford]

Not to get away from the OP, but the poster with the bigger pump didn't quit losing heat when he went to a bigger pump, if he ever was. He is surely using more electricity for pumping water, and has greatly increased the flow rate through his system as a result, but any losses from lack of or compromised insulation are still taking place, just spread over more gpm so that the sensible heat measurement changes. If you leave a window open, does speeding up your furnace fan make it not let cold air in?

 

[avason]

When I measure my supply and return temps I see very different numbers when I change speeds on my 3 speed pump. I was loosing too much heat between house and boiler, so the dealer sold me a bigger 3 speed pump and now I'm not loosing nearly as much heat. Only a degree or 2 on high speed. I thought my pipe was going bad too.

I'm going to have to get a reading on mine. The snow melt just really bothers me. Did you use one of those infrared guns or just the gauges on the stove and boiler?

 

[dparkguy]

I purchased the badger 5 wrap 1" pipes for $6.50/foot. My boiler is 200' from my house. I researched the different types of insulated piping for OWB's for 2 years before making the purchase. I also did my own insulating around the pipe to increase the R value since I have such a long run. I purchased 1" 4'x8' sheets of polystyrene from Home Depot and ripped them outside on a table saw into 8" wide strips. I wrapped and taped the entire 200' of pipe with a layer of billboard fabric (billboards are made of 15-17 mil waterproof fabric). I then laid out a 36" wide strip of billboard the length of the pipe (200') placed an 8" wide strip of polystyrene in the middle of the tarp and then set the 200' of pipe on the foam. I built a box with 3 additional pieces of foam then wrapped and taped the entire length making a 200' long square package. Dropped it in the trench and back filled. I lose less than 5 degrees from the OWB to my plate exchanger. Additional insulating cost me less than $100. My 2 cents!

 

[StihlFroling]

I have some strap on gauges on the metal pipes. Viega I think. So when I run my pump on high speed and the temp differential goes to 1-2 degrees, I'm still loosing the heat to the ground. The higher speed just hides the temp. Readings. So when the OWB guy is selling me the pipe that only has half a degree temp loss, I need to know how fast the water moves or how many GPM? Or is that the same?

Thanks for the clarification.....I have a fluke IR as well

 

[Oxford]

Since no insulation is 100% effective, you will always have some heat loss. If the velocity goes to zero, like in a Thermos bottle for example, the temperature will eventually equalize between what's in the bottle and what's surrounding it, just as if you let your boiler go out, the water temperature in the lines would eventually equalize to ground temperature. In your original configuration, apparently the flow rate was slow enough that the temperature dropped significantly between your boiler and your house. First, make sure your thermometers are on the right pipes. If they are, then think of your buried pipe as a heat exchanger, more specifically a shell and tube heat exchanger. Whatever your original flow rate was, the residence time it allowed in that exchanger was sufficient to cool the flowing water. This would be especially true if your lines are undersized, where the cross section is proportionally smaller compared to the circumference, meaning that your exchanger has a comparatively larger surface area for heat transfer.

Speeding up your pump increased flow rate for sure, and by doing that increased velocity and decreased residence time. It did that for every other pipe, fitting, and valve in your system, including the heat exchangers. That increased velocity also means that you increased wear and tear on pipe, fittings, and exchangers, increased noise, increased electricity use, likely shortened your pump life, and your pipe is still losing heat, you're just pumping through it fast enough that its ability to transfer heat to the ground isn't sufficient to cool the volume of fluid flowing through it. This is one of the rare times where having an open system works to your advantage, because fluid velocity and pressure go to 0 every time the return comes back to the boiler, allowing the relatively crude firing rate controller of your boiler to keep up.

 

[StihlFroling]

For clarification, I spoke with several pipe manufacturers or reps. When comparing underground lines, the velocity or speed of the fluid and pipe INSIDE DIAMETER not OD. must be equal to compare performance. Some use GPM some use feet per second or both. The industry standard for measuring any pipe loss, emitted BTU performance is velocity (or pipe ID AND GPM which equals velocity), 180 degree supply water, and temp differential over distance. So if the specifications read anything other than "X" size nom(ID) @ (2-6fps) with 180* "X" degree loss per 100 feet they are hiding something, or using other means of measures outside the industry standard. No wonder its so confusing, how the heck are you supposed to know the difference when they all say only 1 degree loss at 10 GPM with a 50,000btu load per 100'.

I appreciate your time oxford for being nice and putting it into laymen terms , ah hemm because I need it sometimes. Atleast the ice around the corrugated lines has thawed near the house, it was a solid 3-4' diameter where it comes. Out of the ground and goes into the bond.