Heating Help

Thanks

@ May 18, 2012 4:12 PM in Heat Load for greenhouses.

for the input. There are two old rusty peerless boilers rated at 845,000 IBR. There is a primary loop out to the greenhouses with pairs of close tees and a circulator every place they want a zone. I'm thinking of taking out one boiler and putting 2 or 3 mod cons in its place. (for economic reasons.) I'd have all boilers teed into the primary loop and a boiler control staging the boilers in and out. I'd use the old peerless cast iron beatie as the last dollop of heat in the colder weather. I will do a heat load but I agree it would only be a SWAG

Heat Load for greenhouses.

@ May 16, 2012 6:40 PM in Heat Load for greenhouses.

How do you do a heat load for a greenhouse? there's no walls, only glass. A little help please.

So......

@ February 11, 2012 5:00 PM in Altherma Measured COP

It's not just me having trouble. It;'s actually hard to do. My heat loss is 37,000 for heating. My heat gain in the Summer is around 24,000. I could go on my Wrightsoft operations cost software and get the cost estimate for the heat pump I guess, but how do I get and compare the Alterma costs since it maintains capacity well below our usual balnce point of 35 degrees and our design temp is 15. We seldom get down to the single digits. I just need a number to throw at the homeowner so he can measure an aproximate payback on his extra investment.

Just

@ February 11, 2012 8:27 AM in Altherma Measured COP

Attended a sales class put on by Lance last week. I have a customer who's interested in trying it. To get an installation under my belt I am offering to sell the equipment at cost to him and charge T & M to install it. I'm thinking monoblock to simplify the install. He wants to run an air handler, with domestic water tank (future solar thermal) and add a radiant floor down the road. It's much more exspensive than a traditional heat pump. How do I help him understand the operating price difference between altherma and the traditional Heat pump with back up heat? Our balance point here in MD is 35 F.

HSPF and Altherma

@ February 9, 2012 7:55 AM in HSPF and Altherma

I'm trying to compare the COP (coeffiecience of performance) of the Altherma heat pump boiler to the HSPF of a traditional Heat Pump. I've always thought that the HSPF was basically the btuh output/wattsper hour, but under what conditions are these performance numbers taken and how can I compare them to the Altherma's claim of 3 to 5 COP. Typical residential heat pumps lose the ability to heat the building enveope when the outside temperatures fall below the balance point (35F around here) The Altherma can perform down to -4 F according to literature. How do I compare the two??? Thanks for any help clearing this up in my mind. WW

Indirect water heaters

@ January 31, 2012 6:20 AM in Indirect water heaters

I have a customer who needs more performance out of her indirect water heater. she can't go larger in storage, but wants more output. Which indirects have the best heat transfer rates and the lowest resistance to flow?

What will the heat emmitter be?

@ November 25, 2011 7:52 AM in Solar combination question.

If you are supplementing a radiant floor you might be able to get some heat out of it depending on available sunlight. A radiant floor doesnt need hot water, only warm water,(depending on what type of radiant floor you have) I have 90 evac tubes running to a 120 gallon storage tank and I get all my shower water and some of my radiant floor heating capacity. The best part of the investment is the entertainment value of sitting in my lawn chair in the mechanical room watching it work.  

I don't

@ May 11, 2011 6:36 PM in Water heater problem

Think it needed an expansion tank. I'll take it off and see if the problem goes away. they say don't help friends and neighbors but I can't help myself. they're such nice folks.

I don't

@ May 11, 2011 6:36 PM in Water heater problem

Think it needed an expansion tank. I'll take it off and see if the problem goes away. they say don't help friends and neighbors but I can't help myself. they're such nice folks.

Water heater problem

@ May 11, 2011 6:49 AM in Water heater problem

I just helped out a neighbor by replacing their water heater that started leaking. Not a big deal. Just a 50 gallon nat gas with draft diverter at the top. Connect cold pipe to cold pipe. Hot to hot. Run new flu pipe. I even added an expansion tank. What could be more simple? Now a week later they are saying they are experiencing  hot water coming out of the cold water spigot s for a short while. I went in to the kitchen sink and turned on the cold water after running about 10 seconds, sure enough, about 10 seconds of hot water followed by cold. What the heck! What could be happening? 

Thanks Eddie

@ April 6, 2011 6:57 AM in Nissan NV

I have the plans right here on my desk and I need to do a heat loss but have been suddenly busy. Since we've been slow I've been fast to make the money and will get back to the desk work as soon as I can. Congrats on your Geo job. E-mail me with any details that would help me with my first geo install please. :) Someone told me I should really go Sprinter for my new van. I've never had a deisel before. I would like to stand up in the cargo area. I might need a mini trampoline to get up to it though. :) Do you guys have Sprinters? If so what do you think? WW

For all we know

@ April 5, 2011 7:01 AM in Nissan NV

They are made in the USA. I heard of a new feature in Japanese built cars. "Radiation proof." Bad Joke.  Sorry. It comes from a radio spot I heard on NPR reporting that there is actually a movement in the USA saying cars from Japan arent safe because they may have radiation. I guess there's no underestimating the marketing strategy catering to people's fears.
Anyhow I can't find any mileage info on the NV anywhere. It's too bad since I think I'm really interested in this vehicle.

Link didnt work for me

@ April 4, 2011 9:50 AM in Nissan NV

Is this the option you were talking about. http://www.worldcarfans.com/10710103421/nissan-nv200-concept-van-first-info-revealed  Very cool but,  I'm not sure I even want to see the price on that.

Nissan NV

@ April 4, 2011 7:39 AM in Nissan NV

I've been getting ads in the mail about the new commercial grade trucks being brought out by Nissan. I happened to see one yesterday. It looked nice. A salesman came out to let me see the inside It had a tall roof that I could stand up in. Very nice. I'm 6 foot 2 Inches tall by the way. The are a lot of storage spaces in the front of the cab for all the things that seem to gravitate there in the course of a day. There's a box with a lock between the seats that is big enough for a lap top and has filing cabnent rails for hanging folders. The salesman clearly knew nothing about it and we wasted a bit of time while he tried to look stuff up on the computer. It doesnt list miles per gallon. All the lit says it, "It may vary," Wel duh!!! My weight may vary too but I'll tell you what it is round about if you need to know. (I hate car saleman. Ack!)  Has anyone else researched them? It looks kind of nice.

Hey Dog

@ March 14, 2011 9:36 AM in "BusYness" survey - Mad Dog

Wayco Wayne here down in MD. We have been busy up until 4 weeks ago. I have been checking the phones to make sure they aint broke. IN the meantime I flew down to Forida to check on my folks and have been taking any classes I can find to fill my head. Soon I'll start doing home improvemnts on the house. My wife is hoping it doent get that far. WW

Very cool!

@ March 10, 2011 10:33 PM in Herman's Hermits

Ask him if Mrs Brown's still got a lovely daughter. Girls as sharp as her are something rare.

Eddie G.

@ March 10, 2011 9:25 AM in High Mass vs low massBoiler

Eddie, I'm sorry I missed you. I was invited to the same seminar, but I was out of town that day. I sent my son but got a limited report. I'm taking care of 2 Solar Phoenixes and they are working well. I too remember the Voyager days, and not too fondly.

High Mass vs low massBoiler

@ March 10, 2011 7:33 AM in High Mass vs low massBoiler

I atended a seminar last night showing HTP's new product line. What caught my eye was the high mass boiler they call the Pioneer. Basically its a condensing boiler built into a buffer tank. It's basically the same design of the Phoenix water heater brought up to boiler specs and temps. I know Siggy has been extolling the virutes of this type of product for years and as far as I know this is the first one I've seen. Here in MD the plumbers just fall on the floor and go into a gran mall seizure when faced with understanding and piping a primary secondary piping scheme. I personally don"t underrstand the problem but I think this high mass boiler would help these poor souls out and build in a margin of error for heat load sizing challenged contractors. When installing a lot of micro zones the built in buffer tank is a handy thing to have. I think it would also be good on low mass heat emitters such as copper fin baseboard and kick space heaters. The low mass boilers excell when linked to high mass heat emitters like radiant floors and big old cast iron rads, but become more finicky when hooked up to low mass emitters. I think the more interesting question is, can HTP build in the quality we all craved through the hard times with other previous products. I also haven't looked into any price comparisons to the existing low mass mod cons, but my interest has been piqued.  

View from above

@ March 8, 2011 8:35 AM in View from above

I used to have a web site I could go to to view building from above. When my computer crashed last Summer I lost my way to that site. What do you guys use and recommend?

Tankless questions

@ March 8, 2011 7:51 AM in Tankless questions

I am looking at a job for onw or 2 tankless water heaters. It's 2 locker rooms with 8 showers heads in it. That's 16 in total for those of us who are math challenged. :) How many should I use at what capacity? Should I use a recirc line? What brands are the best? Thanks for any help you can give me. WW

I have

@ March 6, 2011 7:59 AM in Moving large water heaters

a stair climbing hand truck, but you still have to balance and manage it. The idea of an independent remote control run machine is ver appealing to me. Esp. the older I get.

Moving large water heaters

@ March 5, 2011 3:26 PM in Moving large water heaters

Last year I consulted a county parks agency on providing hor water for their Zamboni at an ice rink. Apparently Zamboni's use a LOT of hot water. They had to move out 3 large commercial water heaters down a long flight of stairs from the second floor looking over the hockey rink. The replaced these water heaters with a Phoenix Evolution and a large storage tank BTW. Working very well. When I asked them if they had done a maintenance on the HX of new unit yet they looked startled. Huh? But I digress. The head of the park plumbing department hired a guy who moves safes for a living to carry the large appliances up and down the long straight stairs. He had a stair climbing robot that he uses to move large commercial safes. It had treads like a tank and worked by remote control. Just strap in the heavy stuff and stand back and work the joystick Amazing. The safe moving company only charged him 500 to move everything up and down the stairs. Very clever, thought I. I've always wanted one of those devices like they used in the movie Alien 2 or 3 or 15. I don't remember. Sigourney Weaver Strapped it on move heavy boxes in the cargo bay of the space ship and to to fight the Alien in the end. I could use that to move boilers I thought. Still looking for it in catalogs, but this safe mover sounds like it might do in the present.