The Glitch & The Fix

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Can you spot several details that will lead to problems? How would you design the system differently?

An unpressurized outdoor wood-fired heater is installed to supply heat to fin-tube baseboard install in a two-story home.

Assuming that the aquastat is operating correctly, and that essential details are all present and correctly installed, why is the system behaving this way?

Can you identify several errors or suggest some more refined design approaches for this system?

An installer decides to use a buffer tank between a mod/con boiler and a highly zoned distribution system. 

An installer is asked to provide a multi-zone floor heating system supplied from a single-stage non-modulating geothermal heat pump.

An installer pipes up a two-zone, low-temperature radiant floor heating system to a conventional gas-fired boiler, as shown below.

A schematic, very similar to the one below, appears in a manufacturer’s installation manual. It represents the manufacturer’s recommendation for installing a two-zone system. Can you identify at least five things that could be changed to improve this system?

An installer has piped a multiple boiler system to supply two loads.

An installer plans to replace an outdoor wood-fired furnace with a new cordwood-gasification boiler with a rated output of 150,000 Btu/hr. The outdoor furnace is located about 100 ft. from the indoor mechanical room where the 1-in. PEX insulated underground piping joins the thermal storage tank. The installer plans to use the existing underground piping.