Heating Help

@ May 29, 2009 7:00 PM in OK to use 14 gauge pigtails on a 20 amp/12 gauge circuit?

The wire must be rated to carry the full load of the breaker. Why not just change out the breaker?

@ April 17, 2009 11:16 AM in Tall buildings and Hydronics

As an ex tall building guy I can answer you question. Generally there are multiple mechanical rooms spaced between a series of floors to prevent pressure.

@ March 12, 2009 8:39 PM in Explaining how a heat pump works to a HO

Every time I try and explain how a heat pump works to a home owner I get the head bob or a "yeah right kid" look. Does anybody have a good way to explain how a heat pump gives you two to three times the energy back that you put into it?

@ March 12, 2009 8:11 PM in Solar and Tankless

I have been running into several severely short cycling and water temp fluctuating tankless water heaters lately. They all have one thing in common... A solar preheat tank has been connected directly upstream! The problem? when the tank temp rises but it is still below the required temp, let's say 100 degrees, then the water going into the tankless might not require the minimum BTU's that the tankless can put out. Let's say for example you are running your shower and it is flowing at 2GPM and your preheat tank is 100 degrees, and you are trying to heat it to 120 degrees. How many BTU's is that? 10,000 rounded off. The tankless we serviced today has a minimum modulation rate of 15,000 BTU's. What do you think it will do? Fluctuate and short cycle. My question is this.. Has anyone had this problem too? And better yet, how about some solutions? I'm working on a few myself.

@ February 27, 2009 11:01 AM in How has your Business Plan changed in this recession?

I was just refecting on how many services we have added and how many times we have changed our internal structure to stay profitable. What have some of you done to stay alive and profitable?

@ February 24, 2009 3:52 PM in BTU metering?

Ya, it's pretty dry but I'll be darned if I haven't referred to it at least 5 times already. We have been using Istec meters for a few Solar jobs for the Washington State University. I have yet to do our first big apartment complex, though I am looking for those jobs.

@ February 23, 2009 5:41 PM in BTU metering?

Plumbing and Mechanical Magazine. Middle of last year sometime. I bet if you do a search at the P&M magazine website you can find it.

@ February 22, 2009 6:40 PM in BTU metering?

Siggy wrote an article on it a few months ago. Look it up, very informative.

@ February 22, 2009 6:37 PM in Solar & huge useage pool, seattle????

Not really, they sing about neckrophilia.

@ February 21, 2009 10:15 PM in Solar & huge useage pool, seattle????

I'm guessing Viessmann then? Who ran the sims?

@ February 21, 2009 2:37 PM in Solar & huge useage pool, seattle????

I wouldn't trust RETSCREEN. How can you trust them if you can't see their assumptions. After doing BTU monitoring on a few jobs, we found RETSCREEN to be off by 20% in most cases. TSOL on the other hand, has been fairly accurate. I must say though, that is only after one year of monitoring.

@ February 21, 2009 1:25 PM in Solar & huge useage pool, seattle????

Tim, Stop by my office, I have TSOL and have done allot of pool payback analysis. I'm distracted right now but those numbers don't seem right. Currently we're doing a 140 tube system and another 7 flat plates for a gigantic pool in Issaquah. Thee payback pencils very well.

@ February 20, 2009 6:51 PM in Just for fun

Radiant over concrete. Mod/Con vs. Cast Iron with Rads. Radiant and Wood Floors.

@ February 19, 2009 7:01 PM in Just for fun

I can't believe nobody has said- 'Pumps vx. Zone Valves'

@ February 19, 2009 6:07 PM in The best bang for the buck in condensing boilers?

Quit telling everyone about Traiangle Tube!!! I'm having a hard enough time with their delivery backlog.

@ February 16, 2009 2:16 PM in reverse cycle chiller and radiant

Well when you add in labor, valves, and piping it can get that expensive very quickly if a contractor is honest about their pricing.

@ February 16, 2009 1:29 PM in reverse cycle chiller and radiant

The cost benefit ratio has always been the hang up with pre-heating domestic hot water with an RCC or Geo for us. The extra $5-8K could be put to much better use elsewhere.

@ February 16, 2009 10:38 AM in reverse cycle chiller and radiant

I'm not following. Are you speaking of a Turbomax instantaneous water heater?

@ February 14, 2009 7:26 PM in reverse cycle chiller and radiant

Will, Unico actually publishes the capacites at different outdoor air temperatures. We are currently experimenting with oversizing chillers and installing without any backup. Make sure that buffer tank has allot of capacity. As a general rule of the (very general) you need 2 gallons of buffer for every 1,000BTUH. However, we always use simulation software and size for a minimum run cycle of 10 minutes, which is also the RPA standard cycle time. Be very careful running the chiller water through a coil. Coils are very dependent on a temperature difference between the surrounding water and the coil water temperature, so thinking that you can get that tank up to 120 degrees through a coil is probably wishful thinking. Why not run have the same water/glycol solution that runs through the chiller in the heating system? It really doesn't effect your flows that much. Also, I plan for 110 degree water, it's tough to get the water temp up to 120. I use a single coil buffer tank and run the domestic through the coil and then to a secondary tank that maintains 120. It basically only gets preheated, which is all you will get anyway. Feel free to email me for more info, I'm also okay with sharing some of our piping diagrams. After 12 Unichillers in service, we have the kinks worked out.

@ February 13, 2009 11:51 PM in Some people you just can't please

Had a customer recently hire us to install an RCC and an HRV. They ended up being pains in the butt, but we were able to please them none the less until today. The last straw came when they complained about the noise the HRV makes at night, to which we replied "well Mr. B, the HRV is still in the box, we haven't gotten to that point yet, but I would be happy to move it to another location if you think that would help." True Story

@ February 5, 2009 2:30 PM in 37 zones of radiant heat...(JohnNY)

Please tell me that's not a house!

@ February 3, 2009 4:49 PM in new part time job

Acting as Moderator of "The Wall" in Dan's absence.