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[willieG]

in this photo you can see that my one pump is delevering water to the "feed" manifold and it is running through 3/4 inch  lines  to my exchanger in my frunace..and to my domestic hot water exchanger  then i h ave 1/2 lines going  to a rad in my fire place over 50 feet away and 1/2 inch lines to my radiant floor heat...by doing this i can at any time take any one or more 'appiances" off line to work on them if needed. the pump is a taco 11 and it so far has has no problem delivering water to any one of my 'appliances"

i am sure there are a lot of different ways to plumb your OWB but this one works good for me

thought i would post just for info or ideas of a new person getting started

[rosewood]

something else to consider for someone putting a system together, circ pump is something i fought with getting rite. i tried a couple different pumps, 007, then 0010 both i had kickin around. trying to get my hot water from owb 100' away. fortunate enough for me haveing this problem got me in touch with someone  who knew i lot more about circ pumps then i ever thought of!  i thought if i got hot water to hx then i would be good.... wrong! this guy figured out my ft/ head losses of pipe , hx. i also learned this needs to be considered for diff heating systems, radiant ,baseboard, air ,ect. this guy knew exactly what my line pressure would be and return water tempwould be 20 deg cooler then entry,also important for ''boiler shock'' not a concern for me cause i have so much water but something to consider if your system has a small water capacity. after all these calculations he suggested a taco 1450 series pump,this put me rite in the crosshairs on taco graph chart with gpm/ft head. when building a owf theres all ready enough things to ''wonder if its going to work rite'' for me this is one area i know is spot on.

[maine owb]

It is easy to figure out feet of head and flow rates to give you an exact design to meet your needs. If you have much more than a few feet to go than the size of the pipe makes or breaks things. Most people run 1" to the boiler and back and use a large circulatory to move water, the more btu's you need the more flow you need, the bigger circulator you need. These circulators cost money to run, also easy to figure out, my circulatory which uses .7 amps costs $10/month to run 24 hours per day. But, in order to make a pump that small work I had to run 1 1/4" pex lines out to my wood boiler for a total of 150', 75' there and back. But it wont take that long to pay for the difference from 1" to 1 1/4" pex and it is better for the planet at the same time. Most own dealers don't know how to size correctly or don't care,they sell everyone 1" insulated pex and a large circulatory.

Tip: most all calculations have built into them a margin of error so if you are close to making a calculation work try using a smaller size. But if you are more than 50 feet away from the house and need a good amount of btu's than you should use 1 1/4" pex.

[maine owb]

In my last post every time I wrote circulator my phone changed the spelling to circulatory, sorry.

[willieG]

i msut be  at the limit with my little pump and lines..i am 250 feet from the house 1 inch lines in the ground..(pump is in the house)  3/4 inch lines to the furnace (about 15 feet from pump) 3/4 inch lines to the hot water heater  (about 25 feet from pump) 1/2 line to a rad in my no longer used fireplace (about 50 feet from pump) and 1/2 line to the floor heat (about 12 feet from pump)
i have never had a cold floor or a cold rad or no hot water in nine winters. every time i added an appliance to the system i thought, this is it, time for a booster pump...well, not yet (knock on wood) ((i also have a rad on the return line from the hot water  for my pool room but rarely ever run the fan behind it))

[willieG]

It is easy to figure out feet of head and flow rates to give you an exact design to meet your needs. If you have much more than a few feet to go than the size of the pipe makes or breaks things. Most people run 1" to the boiler and back and use a large circulatory to move water, the more btu's you need the more flow you need, the bigger circulator you need. These circulators cost money to run, also easy to figure out, my circulatory which uses .7 amps costs $10/month to run 24 hours per day. But, in order to make a pump that small work I had to run 1 1/4" pex lines out to my wood boiler for a total of 150', 75' there and back. But it wont take that long to pay for the difference from 1" to 1 1/4" pex and it is better for the planet at the same time. Most own dealers don't know how to size correctly or don't care,they sell everyone 1" insulated pex and a large circulatory.

Tip: most all calculations have built into them a margin of error so if you are close to making a calculation work try using a smaller size. But if you are more than 50 feet away from the house and need a good amount of btu's than you should use 1 1/4" pex.

maine my underground pipes are 1 inch 250 feet each way but my stove is about 3 feet higher than my pump so i put the pump in the basement of the house  my pump has a flow rate of 30 gallons a min at a 32 foot head and is rated at 1.7 amps...a little more costly to run than yours i guess but when i installed it i had no real knowledbe of how to size it so i just went  a little bigger than  the guys in my area. i was told in fact by a dealer i could get away with 3/4 inch underground lines. I thought if i am gonna bury this pipe i want to make sure i am getting enough water so i went with the old "bigger is better"

[juddspaintballs]

Do you have a larger picture of your manifold?

[willieG]

i will post a larger one later tonight

[willieG]

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h308/billie_boy7/003.jpg

this may show a little better?

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h308/billie_boy7/002-manifold-1.jpg

this is the feed header..the reutrn is below this one water enters to the left of the filter (the pump is there) at this location i am getting  roughly 10GPM what is really returning to the furnace i have no idea but when the hot water is bieng used in the house and the furnace is calling for heat there is a 20 degree difference in feed and return at the OWB

I figure this pump is at about it's limit now, when it goes i will go up to maybe the taco 0013 or my pipes in the ground are not very  well insulated (i didn't know then what i do now and at the time i was at the mercy of the furnace seller and what they were shoving then) and i may replace them with better insulated and the next size pipe after learning a little bit about pumps and pipes recently. thanks maine for getting me interested enough to do some on line learning

[juddspaintballs]

thanks for the bigger pictures.  this gives me an idea on how to design a manifold for my own use.