Heating Help

vitosolar 300F

@ May 27, 2013 11:23 AM in New Vitodens boilers

I want one of these: http://www.in-wohnen.de/uploads/pics/Vitosolar_300_F_Bild_1.jpg
Dual purpose space heating & domestic solar storage with backup boiler & solar pumping station, all pumps, mixing valves & controls built in for 8,500 Eur.

insulation?

@ May 14, 2013 4:15 PM in No Rebar

Is there styrofoam? You could use pipe tracking or staple directly to. It would not be wise to have no reinforcement in the concrete though, especially inn a loading dock.

installer

@ May 6, 2013 11:29 AM in Suggestions for frustrated and confused homeowner

I live in the in interior of BC but unfortunately I don't know of any good installers in Van proper. I know how hard it can be to find someone who knows what they are doing but they are out there, you'll just have to be vigilant.

As for equipment I will vouch for The Triangle Tube, very nice boiler & very reliable. I have a preference for Viessmann myself, I have had very few problems with them at all, I have an older Vitodens 200 with an indirect water heater in my own place that has given me zero issues in almost 8 years of continuous service. They have an office in Langley, you may want to hit them up for installer recommendations.

price

@ May 6, 2013 11:01 AM in Polypropylene vents becoming the way to go

PP is more than 636 rated PVC but a little cheaper than 636 CPVC which you are supposed to use on boiler installations (in Canada anyways) though not everyone does.

I would

@ April 18, 2013 11:34 AM in Tekmar 406

I would say definitely maybe. The 406 does have a tN4 input but I don't know how extensive it's capabilities are, I think it's just intended as a setpoint or scene switch input. If you haven't already I would get on the horn with tekmar tech support, they are very helpful and will set you straight right away.

links

@ April 8, 2013 11:43 AM in radiant cooling

There is a good series on Robert Bean's Healthy Heating website
http://www.healthyheating.com/Page%2055/Page_55_i_cooling_eq.htm#.UWLkvqKG12A
Tekmar has a great new comprehensive control for it, The 406 heat pump control
http://tekmarcontrols.com/products/alternative-energy/406.html[/url

I've only ever done it once in a customers house as a trial. They have no other form of cooling and no real accurate humidity control just a standard HRV set up. I set it so the floor return would not dip below the usual dew point for the area. By itself it can only handle the sensible cooling load, it cannot dehumidify, but it does "take the edge off" which is all the client wanted and they are happy.

gain

@ April 5, 2013 3:47 PM in Hydronicly Challenged

Err, it looks like that link is a heat GAIN calculation, the inverse of a heat LOSS calculation. Do you have a link to the heat loss calc?

ICF R-value

@ April 4, 2013 4:46 PM in Hydronicly Challenged

I just wanted to pipe in on the R-value of ICF walls. Your pro who advised you that your walls are only R-22 is wrong. If you have a good heatloss program you can calculate the R-factor of different wall assemblies and they take into account the lack of thermal bridging in ICF construction, a big factor in conventional stick frame construction. You probably are close to R-40.

I also live above the 49th parallel and I can tell you from personal experience that my radiant slab in my ICF basement requires very little temperature & flowrate and I have a significant amount of windows & tubing is 9" centres. Even with the slab off it mantains 17C in the winter.

Your tubing spacing is abnormally wide, the minimum I would ever do in any circumstance is 12" but my gut tells me you will probably be all right.

No

@ March 26, 2013 10:57 AM in Pump Power for GLHP

I'm pretty sure they do not. Definitely something to consider though, I've seen some ground loop set-ups pushing 1500W!

solar back up

@ March 20, 2013 1:57 PM in Radiant heat back up

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than I will chime in, in the meantime this is a good read and should give you a bit more of a general sense of what would be involved.
http://www.caleffi.us/en_US/caleffi/Details/Magazines/pdf/idronics_6_us.pdf

corrosion

@ March 20, 2013 1:50 PM in Water Furnace pump failures

An expansion tank won't prevent corrosion, like I mentioned, if there is corrosion present in the system you would have to get the water analysed & take action based on the results. ie: adding a corrosion inhibitor chemical like furnox or the like. (make sure whatever you put in the system is compatible with the current fluid such as methyl hydrate which is common in geo ground loops)

I usually set my ground loops at 45 PSI or so, it would work fine at any pressure as long as the suction side of the pump doesn't dip at or below zero, that's when cavitation happens. However, since it is a completely closed loop with no make-up I like to set them where I do to add a pressure "buffer" in case pressure is lost over time it can be topped up at the next service interval.

fix

@ March 8, 2013 4:51 PM in Water Furnace pump failures

Add an expansion tank, pressure gauge and an air separator if they are not already present, the air separator is recommended but can be omitted if the system is purged really well. In addition get the water analysed by a heating speciality lab and treat as necessary. By far the most likely reason pumps caff out is because of cavitation due to loss of pressure. If you have an expansion apparatus in the system it will alleviate that.

break

@ March 8, 2013 4:39 PM in Garage Slab Thermal Break

Separate the two slabs with min 2" styro and fasten an aluminium tread over it.

I concur

@ February 26, 2013 6:37 PM in re-piping an old rad system...

This is pretty much the only way to fly with cast iron rads.

stumbled on this stuff the other day

@ February 26, 2013 12:21 PM in underground ductwork

http://www.eccosupply.ca/pdf/price-lists/14.%20Miscellaneous/The%20Blue%20Duct.pdf

lol!

@ February 12, 2013 11:27 AM in Fox news says solar doesn't work here..

I laughed so hard I thought I was going to burst a blood vessel. And they pay these people for these in-depth stories?

radiator USB stick

@ February 7, 2013 4:48 PM in radiator USB stick

Could we see an archive of Holohan works distributed on these in the future?

http://www.schwabenstick.de/sonderformeni.html

Aquatherm

@ February 4, 2013 5:27 PM in AQUATHERM

I've used both Aquatherm & the Chinese knock-off stuff carried by Geo-Source & Dynamic Supply and I will have to say that Aquatherm is superior if every way: tolerances very accurate, some of the Chinese fittings are pretty tight and take some muscle to ram onto the iron but the Aquatherm glides on smooth with very little effort. Same thing with any threaded fittings, The Chinese are either too loose or too tight, you get what you pay for. My only complaint about Aquatherm is that while any monolithic fittings (one piece) are cheap, the valves, unions & threaded fittings are insanely expensive (2-3 times their copper counterpart). Once you get set up, the time per joint is much less than copper. The best thing? N0_LEAKS_EVER!

the point

@ January 30, 2013 11:41 AM in TRV Zoning (Timers)

That would work but it would lack the tidiness & simplicity that the programmable TRV's have.

penny floor

@ January 22, 2013 11:37 AM in Copper floor with pennies

A friend of mine did this last year when he renovated his kitchen, I can't remember how many he used but it was few thousand anyway. All of them he either saved or was donated by friends. Here in Canada they stopped minting them in May 2012. They also have been 98% zinc then 94% steel since 1996 or so as they were costing more to make than the actual face value.

storage

@ January 22, 2013 11:21 AM in a little perplexed

Tarm boilers & indeed any other gasification wood boiler worth their mettle usually employ large amounts of water storage (buffer tank) to extend burn times & burn efficiency.

polaris

@ January 17, 2013 4:16 PM in Radiant heat manifolds and zone controls

Yes you probably only need the 2 wire actuators (no end switch) I was under the impression that the Polaris tank had a built-in heat exchanger for the radiant side? If it does in fact share the same water between the radiant & domestic that should be corrected ASAP as Ironman says, you would need to add a heat exchanger & a pump & an expansion tank to the radiant side.

Edit: http://www.americanwaterheaternews.com/media/lit/polaris/Polaris_Installation_Manual.pdf Actually it doesn't appear to. Yeah, you need to change that.