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[Boydz]

WOuld one of those return line mixing valves back at the Boiler work for this off of the supply ? Ive been thinking about doing installing something like that this summer as im sure Ive got the same issue from time to time.

[RSI]

Why not just put a relay on the house blower that disables the garage? Would that cause any other problems?

[willieG]

why not put a bypass on the domestic tank and send more hot water back to the OWB..you could throttle back teh flow to the domestic water  untill you were hardly adding any cold at the shower

perhaps the way it is now you are heating yoru hot  water to say 140 or 150 and adding a bunch of cold at the shower..if you were to send less water through the plate exhanger and only heeated yoru domestic water to say 130 that would dtill be pleany of heat for the domestic use and you would be sending mcuh hotter water through the system?

[willieG]

Maybe I am off on this but if all 3 HX's are in series wouldn't it be better to have a loop with closely spaced tees tying them all together?

this is a good idea and i don't knwo if you need more pumps? i run furnace plenum(8 or 10 feet of 3/4 copper)...domestic water(25 feet of 3/4 copper) ...exchanger in my fire place (50 feet of 1/2 pex) and 8 feet (1/2 pex) to floor heat (there is a pump to circulate teh floor heat) these footages are all one way so you have to double it to get back to the return header. I have 250 feet one way of 1 inch pexal pex to the boiler running a taco 11 pump and i have never run out of heat and never went below 150 return. i have a sepert line from the header to each appliance.

i know that the velociity (gpm) is slowed to each appliance, but they are all getting the same temp of water so i think that helps keep the return water hotter.

[Scott7m]

Close t's would require a pump in the supply of thst appliance

[RSI]

How much pipe was added to the main loop for the garage? If it is very much, putting that on a secondary loop with a small pump would cut the head pressure down and get better flow.

[woodman]

The idea of a manifold and multiple pumps has been brought up a few times. I currently have everything set up in a series with 1" line, with a single pump at the boiler.

If I set it up with a manifold as 3 seperate zones, each with its own zone valve and pump, if all 3 were calling for heat can the 1" logstor supply enough water to each pump?   

[RSI]

It would probably work fine but I don't recommend putting the plate on a manifold. Everything should run through it first then split if you want to.

If you didn't have to add much pipe for the 3rd heat exchanger then the only thing putting them in parallel will really do is allow you to send more heat to one than the other.

If everything is working good and all you want to do is keep the temperature from dropping so much when all 3 are running at the same time, just either put an aquastat on the pipe that shuts off the garage blower if the temp goes under 150 or put a relay on it to keep it from running when the other blower is running.

Both very simple and doesn't require any plumbing changes.

If you do have a lot of pipe going to the 3rd heat exchanger then I would consider putting it on a secondary loop. (not manifold setup) For a secondary loop you put two closely spaced tees in the same pipe and add a pump that runs when the blower does. The water will completely bypass this loop when not calling for heat.