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61
General Discussion / Re: Make America Great Again
« on: August 20, 2017, 10:10:32 AM »Laughable absurdities.In many of our minds and in my opinion, the Civil war was not about slavery but instead about individual states rights to choose either local govt or a federal bearocracy, obviously the Feds won and it has so far done an exemplary job with fairness for all mankind, go ahead, erase history and we can all live it again.
Only like 1.4% of Americans actually owned slaves then.
North vs South was a nail in states rights coffin, Obamacare was several more ringshank nails.
62
General Discussion / Re: Make America Great Again
« on: August 20, 2017, 10:09:57 AM »I think we could view a cemetery as a different item than a war time statue, many of which were Jim Crow era.I think the best option is to remove any statues and put them in museums instead of the public square.
Interesting statement and on the surface it sounds like a nice idea until one looks into it. I wonder how they go about moving a cemetery to a museum? I mean Arlington National Cemetery. The property on which the cemetery sits belonged to the family of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Lee had trouble paying his taxes so the feds took the land and began a practice of burying Union soldiers on the property and that continues to this day.
63
General Discussion / Re: Make America Great Again
« on: August 20, 2017, 10:08:43 AM »In many of our minds and in my opinion, the Civil war was not about slavery but instead about individual states rights to choose either local govt or a federal bearocracy, obviously the Feds won and it has so far done an exemplary job with fairness for all mankind, go ahead, erase history and we can all live it again.It was about slavery, plain and simply. The states wanted the right to choose if they could allow slaves or not. The choice that the states wanted mattered. This idea that it was simply a state vs federal government ideal is absurd.
64
General Discussion / Re: Make America Great Again
« on: August 19, 2017, 03:39:37 PM »Also none of those monuments have the subjects dressed in military regalia fighting for the side to keep slavery in place. That's not an insignificant difference.I think the best option is to remove any statues and put them in museums instead of the public square.
Mount Rushmore, the Lincoln Monument, White House will not fit in a museum.
They may not be the same era, but its coming, history is history and if your offended don't look at them don't go to them, but don't take them away from the rest of us Americans because someone had a thought.
65
General Discussion / Re: Make America Great Again
« on: August 19, 2017, 03:37:32 PM »By that logic you have no voice if the public wish to rip them down...I think the best option is to remove any statues and put them in museums instead of the public square.
Mount Rushmore, the Lincoln Monument, White House will not fit in a museum.
They may not be the same era, but its coming, history is history and if your offended don't look at them don't go to them, but don't take them away from the rest of us Americans because someone had a thought.
66
General Discussion / Re: Make America Great Again
« on: August 18, 2017, 03:30:43 PM »
I think the best option is to remove any statues and put them in museums instead of the public square.
67
Advanced Electronics / Re: communicating systems
« on: August 14, 2017, 05:29:01 PM »We were trying to break the signal to the outside unit (compressor, 2-stage) and reroute it to a circulator. Basically adding another heat source. The problem is all the signals were digital.
And dual or triple heat stage thermostats can't give you what you need?
Or do you want the OWB stage to only be available if the water is up to temp?
68
Advanced Plumbing / Re: Primary/Secondary system design
« on: August 13, 2017, 08:53:28 PM »
So a couple of things I see:
I would abandon the tertiary level to the cement loops, if done right there is no reason you cannot run all the cement in floor loops off one pump (secondary off the main loop).
I would also imagine you would want to mix down the water temperature for the cement in floor loops. Sending 160-180 degree water into the cement floor can make standing on top of it uncomfortable on the feet. A much lower temp for those loops would be a better design. 85-105 degree water is usually a good range for cement in floor loops.
There isn't really a reason to divide your primary loop up with the parallel branches. If you are doing a loop, make it a loop, not a bunch of cells. You could run into balancing/starvation issues if you make all those parallel paths in your primary loop. It would be simpler to keep all your secondary loops with close spaced tees off of one continuous primary loop.
I would abandon the tertiary level to the cement loops, if done right there is no reason you cannot run all the cement in floor loops off one pump (secondary off the main loop).
I would also imagine you would want to mix down the water temperature for the cement in floor loops. Sending 160-180 degree water into the cement floor can make standing on top of it uncomfortable on the feet. A much lower temp for those loops would be a better design. 85-105 degree water is usually a good range for cement in floor loops.
There isn't really a reason to divide your primary loop up with the parallel branches. If you are doing a loop, make it a loop, not a bunch of cells. You could run into balancing/starvation issues if you make all those parallel paths in your primary loop. It would be simpler to keep all your secondary loops with close spaced tees off of one continuous primary loop.
69
Advanced Electronics / Re: communicating systems
« on: August 13, 2017, 08:38:50 PM »Wonder if anyone has ideas about how to tie a OWB into a communicating stat/air handler. We had one a while back that we had to purchase a $200+ circuit board from Carrier to convert to conventional 24v signals to be able to shut off the compressor. Wish there was an easier way.What exactly do you want the OWB to do? Prevent water over-temp irrespective of house thermostat state?
Thanks.
70
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: How Much Money Does Your Outdoor Wood Boiler Save You? w/ poll
« on: August 13, 2017, 08:33:51 PM »Oh yah, another thing and this is huge, since having a OWB those godawful flannel nighties she used to wear to bed don't make near the appearances they used to.Sounds like some heavier duty quilts could have saved you some moola, and provided more years of under covers enjoyment!
71
Plumbing / Re: loop question
« on: June 28, 2017, 07:19:39 PM »lets say you have a circuit of 10 loop and you decide to add another ..all loops on the same header and all loops the same length and size, will this added loop cause more head or only take away from the flow on the other loops?The head loss across the primary header entry and exit will remain the same, the gpm per loop will change (decrease) and thus change your btu output per loop.
72
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Ecobee Smart Thermostat and OWB?
« on: June 28, 2017, 06:32:57 PM »Seems like breaking the compressor, strip heat etc with relays and a temp controller (ranco) sensing the incoming OWB line would be simpler? Then the stat can be one stage of heat, be Wi-Fi connected etc and the heat pump or other secondary heat source will not come on if the OWB is hot.It wouldn't be with a 3h conventional stage smart thermostat with a larger separation of stages than the night setback is at. That or ramp up the temp in steps in the morning lower than the 1/2 stage differential.
We do it that way on all Wi-Fi and multi-zone heat pump stats.
73
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Ecobee Smart Thermostat and OWB?
« on: June 27, 2017, 11:39:26 AM »The issue I found with the Nest is if the OWB is set up as primary and the gas furnace as secondary, when you have a big enough call for heat it kicks em both on. We set the thermostat at 68 for the night and 73 during the day. in the morning instead of preheating with jus the OWB, it would kick the gas furnace in as well.Are you using */W3 for anything? I see that the specs have the W1/W2 differential at 3.3 degrees while the W1/W3 differential is 7 degrees. Seems like you could run two stages of heat on stages 1 and 3 of the Nest and that spread would prevent the second stage of heat from being engaged as well. I am/was using a humidifier but may just jumper it of of W1 instead of an independent feed from the Nest. I am going to try the W1 for OWB, W2 no connection, W3/* backup (electric strip) heat configuration this fall.
74
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Ecobee Smart Thermostat and OWB?
« on: June 27, 2017, 05:41:08 AM »Many thermostats, most every smart or programmable now-a-days has the ability to control two or more heat or cooling sources. It's basically two thermostats built into one. Some have interactions between them so you can determine when/how each heating or cooling source is activated. It saves having to manually control multiple thermostats.There should be no problem with using an ecobee. Many folks here use smart thermostats (myself included, I use a NEST).
Do you have a second stage/backup heat source?
All the ecobee products I have looked at have standard 2 heat/2 cool capability.
Thanks.
Excuse my ignorance but what do you mean by having a second stage/backup heat source?
Right now I have four sets of thermostat as follows:
2 thermostat control each of the Heat Pumps for normal operation (that is NO OWB involved)
2 separate thermostat control the temperature at which the fan blower comes on/off from the two above mentioned heat pumps during OWB winter operation when thermostat calls for heat.
Sounds like what you really need is a 3 heat / 2 cool thermostat. You have two stages of heat pump heating, and one stage of OWB heating. Likewise you have two stages of heat pump cooling.
You could go with the Ecobee3 Lite:
https://www.amazon.com/Ecobee3-Thermostat-Wi-Fi-Works-Amazon/dp/B01K48T09Y/ref=pd_sim_60_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01K48T09Y&pd_rd_r=XTJFR0K99ATNHTKXH86Z&pd_rd_w=Ty01P&pd_rd_wg=BubAz&psc=1&refRID=XTJFR0K99ATNHTKXH86Z
Here is a connection example for radiant, and 1 stage heat pump heating W2 would go to heat pump W1, not W2 on boiler, and 2 stages of heat pump cooling:
https://www.ecobee.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/ecobee3lite_wiringdiagram_boilerradiant.pdf
The main problem is that heat pumps are treated by thermostats to be the primary source (stage 1 and stage 2 of a 3 stage system). I don't see any Ecobee products that have 3 independent heating stages. W1, W2, W3.
NEST does have a W3 option, as do some other 3h capable thermostats. Are you fixed on Ecobee or would any smart or programmable thermostat do? Do you want a separate app to control, Alexa integration, ect..?
75
General Outdoor Furnace Discussion / Re: Ecobee Smart Thermostat and OWB?
« on: June 27, 2017, 05:27:33 AM »The issue I found with the Nest is if the OWB is set up as primary and the gas furnace as secondary, when you have a big enough call for heat it kicks em both on. We set the thermostat at 68 for the night and 73 during the day. in the morning instead of preheating with jus the OWB, it would kick the gas furnace in as well.What category do you have the OWB set as? Radiant? Many high swings will engaged both stages of heat, you may have to fiddle with the scheduling to slowly bring up from 68 to 73 to keep the second stage from kicking on all the time.