Heating Help

The hydronic job from hell....

I've been following this project for about ten years now. We didn't do the original installation, but were asked into the house to attempt to make it work better numerous times. We got the snowmlet working about 2 times better than original, but our hands were still tied by the owner not wanting to spend any more money than necessary. One complaint from the occupants was that the house was too cool. Such is the nature of the beast (staple up) when there is a lot of R value placed on top of the floor, and the home has 38 ceiling can lights (you can feel the cold running through the home when the wind blows).

Then, when the snowmelt fires up (3 Buderus G205's doing space heat, DHW and snowmelt) the house gets REAL cold...

That plus the fact that the staple up was basically supplied with the same zone that was serving tube in concrete, and you have a hydronic nightmare.

The homeowners are bazillionaires, and this is their guest house, and it is for sale, and the lady has a guilt complex over selling the house with all the inherent problems. She calls me in to give her the low down on the crap system and give her a price to make it as right as we can short of ripping up carpet.

We (myself and Mike O) took one of the Buderi boilers out, eliminated the FPHX'er doing the snowmelt, ripped out the Amtrol 40 gallon tank (trying to fill an 80 gallon tub...) and dropped a Knight KBN399 in to do DHW (prioritized 50 gallon reverse indirect) and snowmelt. We then separated the staple up from the tube in concrete using a Grundfos Alpha (What a pump!), eliminated the obsolete control logic with conventional honeywell thermostats, straightened out the controls and wiring, and watched it purr..

I anticipate a 30% reduction in fuel consumption, and the occupants of the house (her niece) said it is C O M F O R T A B L E, like it has never been before. AND, she was able to actually fill the soaking jacuzzi COMPLETELY, and her hubby immediately jumped into the shower and stayed there for 30 minutes and said the temperature never deviated (use to have to continually adjust).

Now, if I can just talk her into letting us go up to her ranch in western Colorado.... Western village, miles of snowmelt and RFH systems up the kazoo :-)

Enjoy. Here are the BEFORE and DURING pictures.

Thanks for the help Mike.

ME

Aftermath

This job should look REAL familiar to many in the industry. I think everyone and their brother had worked this system over at one point in time or another. I know at least two well known service companies had their go at it (unsuccessfully).

The scary thing was that all 3 Buderi boilers were running over 1000 ppm CO in their flue gas streams, and had alledgedly been serviced under a "Annual Maintenance Agreement". Must have been a drive by maintenance agreement.

Enjoy!

ME

Too bad

To bad they couldn't take a few extra minutes and lay the system out.  Instead of piping their way out of the mech room.  Too bad they did understand all those great components they used.  Too bad they use "naked staple up"  Where is the craftsmanship anymore, why is everyone in such a hurry?  It sure makes it hard for guys who do it right!
By the way a great place for the water meter.   Taco loves systems like this one. 
A 40 gallon indirect what were they thinking  I am sure that it was supplied with 3/4" coper too.  All those btus and still can't keep up what a shame.  The whole time the system was singing the song by the Scarecrow "If I only had a brain"

Good job being the only guy to fix there problems.  I am sure it was hard not to take the sawzall and tear it all out and start from scratch.


Jeffrey

Trust me....

Sawzall surgery was the FIRST thing to pop in my mind the FIRST time I saw it 10 years ago ;-)

I was just glad that I talked them into doing what they did.

Even with all the existing crooked pipes, it works 1000 times better than it did before.

Thanks for the kudos Jeff.

Talk about 7 degrees of separation, the "kid" who did most of this work, under the direction of his forced error boss, eventually went to work with Advanced Hydronics, the company I use to work for.

Even more ironic, my brother, the licensed mater plumbing expert witness, had to testify against a former student of mine who burned down a barn at this ladies property up in Grand County...

She found me by googling snowmelt repairs and remembered that I had looked at it a LONG time ago, took a chance and sent me an email.

The saddest part of this story is that due to this debacle, these people will NEVER allow hydronic radiant heating systems to be installed in ANY of their future homes. They are building two new homes right now. One in California and one in Parker Colorado. I tried my hardest to talk her back into using the most comfortable system in the world, to no avail. No way Jose. Been there, got burned and will never go back. From her on out, it is forced air or nothing at all....

Bad news for our industry for sure.

ME