Starting my "storage and replumb" project

[leon]

About your drawing, why are you using two air scoops? have you decided not to use a steel expansion tank or a pair of bladder tanks and instead use just a pair of spirovents????

I am concerned that your circulators will fail as there is no point of pressure change to allow them to work properly as they are too high.

 

[warno]

I've all but abandoned my own drawing and I'm going with a modified version of a drawing I got from another site. The reason I have 2 air scoops is because I have 2 separate loops. One for garage and one for house. But only the garage will be running this winter since I don't have time now to plumb the house as well.

What do you mean my circulators are to high? The one on the picture is about 4 inches higher then where it pulls from my storage tanks. The idea of expansion I'm going with is an air bubble in the top of my storage tanks. The air released from the auto vent on top of the scoop is directed back to the air bubble in the storage tank.

 

[warno]

I've started plumbing things up now. The area alloted for my plumbing filled up pretty quick once I got going. I ran out of elbows to finish everything up. Some pics...

The pex line hanging down will be cut up above the ceiling level and tie into the copper.

 

[warno]

I got some more plumbing done this morning. I will be getting more elbows this week to finish it all. The garage loop is done so I air tested my sweat fittings on that loop. After fixing a leaking threaded plug it held 60 psi for about an hour when I left the garage. I left the air charge in there, I'll check on it later tonight.

Heat exchanger pump and crap trap on storage side

I changed out my pump in the boiler shed to a higher head unit to accommodate the heat dump when it is used. Also added a crap trap to this side of the heat exchanger piping.

The boss showed up but he didn't get out of his car to inspect anything. Phew!

Edit: just checked on the pressure and after about 6 hours it's still holding the same. I think I'm good.

 

[Buzz Saw]

What brand insulated Pex did you use? Or is that home made foam in place?

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[warno]

It's thermopex from Central Boiler. It's really nice stuff. I'm going to use it again to run from the garage to the house. I would highly recommend it. I paid $11 per foot. They offer caps for the ends but for some reason I couldn't justify the extra $40 for the pair. I wish I would have now.

 

[Buzz Saw]

It's thermopex from Central Boiler. It's really nice stuff. I'm going to use it again to run from the garage to the house. I would highly recommend it. I paid $11 per foot. They offer caps for the ends but for some reason I couldn't justify the extra $40 for the pair. I wish I would have now.

Is that 1"? Doesn't Thermopex measure by OD? What's the ID?

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[warno]

I'm not sure on the ID but it fits standard 1" pex fittings, so whatever standard pex is.

 

[warno]

I have all the copper plumbing done now. I still need to run some pex up into the rafters to my heat dump coil. I also need to build my heat dump coil and duct it together with my fan.

I also did some firebox work this morning. I started to rebuild my refractory areas in the front. I still need to relay my firebrick and touch up my refractory in the back.

 

[Buzz Saw]

In a previous post you mentioned a "crap trap". Did you make the trap or is that something that can be bought? If you bought can you share the make & model? Thanks

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[warno]

Lol yeah, it's a "wye strainer" made by watts, this one. It was the cheapest way I could try to avoid getting garbage on my plate heat exchanger. Reveiws look good and they seem to be a pretty solid unit.

 

[warno]

I'm almost ready to fill and do my pretreatment on my storage. I need to finish my heat dump coil at work them plumb and duct it in and I'm ready to go. Should be this week I'll be done with my coil and plumbing to it.

I've finished my refractory and relaying the brick in my firebox. I also finished my modifications to hopefully help get some secondary flame above my fire. And I install my flue temp sensor to run to my controller, since it will be burning until it's out of fuel this year I installed a flue temp sensor to shut things down.

Anyway here's some pics.

Fire box with new refractory lining and brick

Here's the mods I did. In the back of my ash pan there is 2 air ports from my fan. One is open to flow in under the coal bed of the fire they other flows into a little drop down section in my fire grate. Seen here

The fire grate is made of 1" stainless pipe so the air flows through the grate to the front then back to the back, picking up heat the whole way, then it flows up into this branch that I made with holes in it to get the hot air up over top of the fire.

And here's my flue temp sensor installed. I just welded in a 1/4" pipe half coupler then put in compression fitting to hold the sensor probe for easy removal when cleaning.

And I started my heat dump zone install. Here's the fan that will blow on the coil to cool things down.

 

[lotawood]

Looks good. Flue temp sensor is pretty nifty to have to look at temps during burn in addition to shut down function. With the refractory and the heated air, I bet you have your smoke under control.

I made an air intake system that is less impressive than yours for an old wood stove. It boosted the efficiency to where there is no visible smoke.

I think on mine it was more about preheated air and less about secondary air.

 

[warno]

Last piece of the puzzle. I just finished this up at work this morning. This is my heat dump zone coil. now Time to do more plumbing and alittle duct work and light a fire.

Threw it in the test tank for a leak check.

Held this for 10 minutes, good enough for me.

 

[Buzz Saw]

You made the coil?

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[warno]

That's what we do at work, so yeah I made it. Lol pretty handy with a hobby like this to be able to build the more expensive items from the scrap box at work.

We had a unit using that fin and it was a big order so they always run a stack or 2 extra fin. So after the production units were done I grab the extra fin and build the aluminum frame around it. Then finished it out with copper tube (scrap box) and copper return bends (scratch and dent box) then through some headers at it.

 

[maple1]

Warno's on a different level of 'handy' - lol.

 

[colson04]

Warno's on a different level of 'handy' - lol.

Yeah, my thought too.

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[warno]

Warno's on a different level of 'handy' - lol.

I'm going to take that as a compliment.

 

[huffdawg]

Is there a fan for the coil or will it shed the heat naturally?

 

[warno]

Refer to the last pic in post #37. I'm going to duct that fan to the coil. Yes it would shed heat without it but then I would be heating my garage attic with my excess heat and nobody wants that.

 

[huffdawg]

Refer to the last pic in post #37. I'm going to duct that fan to the coil. Yes it would shed heat without it but then I would be heating my garage attic with my excess heat and nobody wants that.

Sorry, I thought it was an over heat dump for when the power went out , just wondering source of power for the fan in that case.

 

[maple1]

I'm going to take that as a compliment.

Ya, you can do that.

 

[warno]

Sorry, I thought it was an over heat dump for when the power went out , just wondering source of power for the fan in that case.

In the 7 years we have lived here I can probably count the power outages on my hands. If the power goes out the damper on my boiler shuts and the fire dies like going into idle mode. And turning my boiler into a creosote factory, like it was last year running like a OWB does.

So in my case my heat dump is simply used if my boiler is over firing, like say my storage is up to temp and I put to much wood in the firebox it will dump the heat into my garage via this coil/fan setup. It honestly may never get used but for the, probably less than, $100 I have in the coil, fan, duct, and plumbing it was worth it for the "just in case" factor.

 

[huffdawg]

Ok makes sense. My new froling calls for a heat dump for over firing too. I think I'll turn my garage floor into the heat dump. Not like I ever over fire , but nice just incase.