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Radiant & HydronicsThe Glitch & The Fix

Trying Something New

By John Siegenthaler, P.E.
February 1, 2008
The Glitch


The Glitch

Overview: A heating contractor, who’s tired of coaxing 500-pound cast-iron boilers into homes, decides to try out a wall-mounted mod/con boiler because of its light weight and side wall venting.

He pipes it up as shown below. All flow to the distribution system supplying several radiant panel manifolds passes through the three-way thermostatic mixing valve. When purchasing the boiler, the installer was told to use a pair of closely spaced tees to separate the boiler and distribution system, so he installed some closely spaced tees as shown. 

Exercise: Can you spot at least four things that should be changed in this layout?



The Fix

The Fix

Well, those are closely spaced tees under the boiler, but they don’t serve to hydraulically separate the boiler form the distribution system.

Another poor choice is to install a 3-way thermostatic mixing valve (or any mixing assembly for that matter) between a mod/con boiler and the distribution system. It makes no sense to operate the boiler at a temperature higher than needed by the distribution system, and then mix down the water temperature. This reduces the ability of the mod/con boiler to operate with flue gas condensation and thus reduces efficiency.   Furthermore, if that 3-way thermostatic valve has a low Cv "

Links

  • February 2008 The Glitch & The Fix

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Siegenthaler

John Siegenthaler, P.E., is a consulting engineer and principal of Appropriate Designs in Holland Patent, New York. In partnership with HeatSpring, he has developed several online courses that provide in-depth, design-level training in modern hydronics systems, air-to-water heat pumps and biomass boiler systems. Additional information and resources for hydronic system design are available on Siegenthaler’s website,  www.hydronicpros.com.

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