owb plumbing

[John D]

Ok, Ive been working on my boiler hookups,I got a few pictures here. I did my own work,as moneys getting tight and my plumber is very busy right now. The only thing i may change is the blow off, I may raise it up to the plug in the top T.Im not sure yet,gotta see what my inspector says if its a problem.Im no pro,but I am very handy,not much i can't do or build.:greenchainsaw:

Im still pateiently waiting on my Shaver 250 to get here .My boiler room is small,it is very tight in there,not much room to spare.I never anticipated needing to hook up a heat exchange when i built the house 11 yrs ago,or Id have done things differently. The lack of space makes working a little harder . Here are some pics of my progress,Im open to ideas,or needs for improvements.

 

[John D]

a few more pictures

 

[John D]

Finally with both lines built. I Still need to sweat a few pipes in these pics,but im getting there. I am going to drop the PEx thru the ceiling into the heat exchanger unit.I built a shelf for the exchange unit to sit on,it is heavy with all the fittings attached to it. Im still working on the circulator and bottom side attachment point. Does anyone think i need to put bleeder valves at the hx unit?

 

[guiness1976]

Nice Pics John, I just put my Aquatherm into its roughed out shed today. It will be nice to start working on the inside plumbing.

 

[iceracer45]

may be move the blowoff up , it makes a good place to purge the air out and not lock up the top half of the boiler, althougth u look fairly organized and may have a purge valve.

 

[November Wolf]

You might want to mount that heat exchanger vertical instead of horizontal. I bought a 40 plate and the directions said to mount it that way. Really dont know why it would matter.

 

[John D]

You might want to mount that heat exchanger vertical instead of horizontal. I bought a 40 plate and the directions said to mount it that way. Really dont know why it would matter.

Thanks,but its a little late for me to do that now. My plumber mounted his this way,no problems. i was told to not mount it on its back,as air would get trapped in it,otherwise it didnt matter how it was mounted. I just finished up the pressurized side,wiring,and circ install.Its all done,no leaks,now gotta cut the hole in the ceiling,and drop down the PEX from the attic,and get that side on. That should be fun trying to bend that pex pipe in these temps.

 

[John D]

OK, I got a few pics from today. It is too cold and windy here to do much outside,so it worked out well with what i got done.Also i put in a digital aquastat, my plumber says my original wont go as low as ill need it too.That wasnt a cost I planned on,but its very nice,and adjustable down to 110 degrees.

 

[John D]

A few more.I put independent switches on the OWB and the circulator.I just wired them off the existing boiler,since the total load of both and the outdoor lights are less than 500 watts.The existing load is under 500,so i got plenty left.

 

[November Wolf]

Thanks,but its a little late for me to do that now. My plumber mounted his this way,no problems. i was told to not mount it on its back,as air would get trapped in it,otherwise it didnt matter how it was mounted. I just finished up the pressurized side,wiring,and circ install.Its all done,no leaks,now gotta cut the hole in the ceiling,and drop down the PEX from the attic,and get that side on. That should be fun trying to bend that pex pipe in these temps.

Thats good to know you can mount that like you did. I think I may mount mine like that as well. It will make my install job much cleaner looking. Nice job on your install. I really like that digital aquastat.

 

[harvdog31]

did you connect into the existing system? i have the same oil boiler.

 

[John D]

harvdog,Im sorry I guess I never got your notification when you posted....I hope your all hooked up by now....
Im modifying my system this week.Everything is working as it should however I do not have enough hot water capacity with this setup(my plumber only installed a 40 gallon DHW tank for a 3300sq ft 2 family......It is adequete most of the time,but since I have a 2 family ,I never know what and when my tenant is using a lot of water.Of course the problem gets worse as it gets colder and the heat is on more,the indoor temps drop so the recovery is even slower....So I bought a 10 plate 316 SS exchanger and an going to plumb it into the existing 1" line....due to space constrictions I an putting it ahead of the current 50 plate HX.....I will be plumbing the cold side DHW inlet to the HX and preheating the water as it enters the DHW tank....Im hoping this helps my situation without robbing too much heat from the main boiler......I will be installing the 10 plate off tees and with shutoffs so i can basically shut it out if i have too...all the additional bends will be going to the 10 plate HX...my theory is as long as the circ is running the DHW circulator wont likely come on at all unless no ones used water in a while,then it may need to be heated up again without the water flowing...so the main boiler wont be working as hard,so the fact that the waters a little cooler coming in probably wont be a big issue...my other plan is to use an additional Ranco 111000 ,bsically tape the probe to the cold well water line coming into the 10 plate im installing ,set it around 55 degrees,with the final temp and differential TBD when done,and wire its output to the OWB circulator...so when the hot water is used,after a ful cycle of the water bladder ,the inlet will be very cold well water,at this time the Ranco will kick just the OWB circ on,and the plate HX will make hot water withour running the rest of the circs....I want to do this becaue when i run the OWB circ full time,the wood usage is much higher,my lines are likely wet at some point and my electric usage is down over 20.00 a billing cycle this way...so until i dig another trench and run logstor pipe,im going to have to try to run that circ only when needed.Any suggestions would be appreciated....My concerns are running the outdoor circ off the new ranco without backfeeding the existing relay box thats currently controlling the cycling of that circ as well as the loop circ inside at the indoor boiler.....

 

[John D]

I installed the 10 plate hx...along with a Taco WB 2400 pump...I should have done this years ago ...the system loafs along now with the circs running about half the time they used to on average ...it allowed me to drop my water temps down 3 degrees so far...I think I can go even lower ....oh yeah I have infinite hot water now..as long as there's wood in the owb ...

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[John D]

Here are a few pics .I tried to show the water flow I decided on...I put caps on the dhw lines and quick connections...so cleaning with vinegar should be easy...I am bypassing the 10 plate with about 90% of the water...only a small percentage goes thru it before all of it hits the 50 plate hx.

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[November Wolf]

Nice Job!!!! I am glad it is working good for you now. Better late than never.

 

[John D]

Sure is...I'm realizing now how much wood I've been wasting ...with my boiler temps down from 184 a week ago to 180 now, and th fact that my dhw circ is no longer running 5 hrs a day...my wood usage is down around 20% maybe more.....also thought I didn't have enough OWB ...but I can see from my temp gauge that I've got plenty ..I just didn't have enough heat exchange going on for the dhw ......

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