Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => Plumbing => Topic started by: NaturallyAspirated on October 20, 2013, 02:49:07 PM
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Hello all!
Looks like a great forum here! I am looking at building a new home (hybrid living quarters/garage/cold storage from a 120' x 60' building), and am interested in feedback ideas on my energy systems. Obviously those included a OWB. I travel quite often so I thought that perhaps a combination of a geothermal heat pump and a boiler would be best, just incase there was a failure to fuel the boiler. I have attached a basic overview of what I would like (I think...???) to do. Suggestions, ideas, comments?
Neal
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Wow, I think you are severely overthinking it, it does not need to be complicated, Storage tanks/ blending tanks ?
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I have to agree.... It's way to complicated. Also, in regards to heating. A getothermal unit is a pretty poor choice. I would personally be looking at 2 boiler systems, one of which being a owb, the other with a more sustainable when gone fuel source like gas
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Geothermal is OK in some locations but here in the northeast, not so good a choice generaly speaking.
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Geothermal is OK in some locations but here in the northeast, not so good a choice generaly speaking.
Even here in ky it's nothing impressive. My parents have it and we often do jobs upgrading geo owners to a warm heat lol
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I think the major problem with geothermal is that nobody warranties the wells, great concept but to many variables.
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I think the major problem with geothermal is that nobody warranties the wells, great concept but to many variables.
There is some wells here, but not many. Most are done in 6-8ft deep trenches or in the bottom of farm ponds
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Its getting time for the old long haired libertarian to go to bed, I'm not about to get into one of those situations that we did the other night, I need my rest, You have a good night, I will try to check in in the morning.
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Its getting time for the old long haired libertarian to go to bed, I'm not about to get into one of those situations that we did the other night, I need my rest, You have a good night, I will try to check in in the morning.
Wasn't aware there was an issue..... ???
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Geothermal is OK in some locations but here in the northeast, not so good a choice generaly speaking.
Geothermal is becoming huge in the northeast..I see it a lot..I work in the construction field.. Its very expensive..I wish my town new high school did it..But it got voted out..But on that note to this post...Check out Central Boiler..They offer options (last i knew) where you can have a Beckett burner installed in the OWB and burn propane, oil or Kero..It would automatically come on if no fuel for the fire ( below a certain water temp setting)..
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geothermal is far better than a heat pump sitting outside your home
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geothermal is far better than a heat pump sitting outside your home
Even when it costs 4x as much!?
To me geothermal is the biggest joke ever... When it first came out my parents bought one, it cost about $7500 to do there home, now the same job is in the 22k range.
There is heat pumps now that have crazy high seer ratings, some 22 seer or higher, geothermal is normally 17 seer
With that being said though, technically geo should be better for heating because its heat source is warmer than the winter air. From what I've saw, a heat pump here in ky quits working and keeping up on most homes around 40 degrees, the geothermal takes that number down to probably 28-30 before we start seeing the heat strips come on. My parents electric bills aren't bad, $240 in winter, but there house doesn't feel warm at all, even when it reads 73 it doesn't feel the same as the owb heat
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My aunt also has geothermal, hers is well style.. It's a 2 story with basement log home, they have $300 electric bills all winter and run there wood burner in the basement with the door open letting heat rise into the home...
I'm not saying I don't agree with the science of it, it's just so many folks I've seen didn't actually save anything. Her unit was 8-9 years old and had a compressor failure, if I remember correctly it was something like 6-8k to have it replaced
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scott when i used my geothermal to heat my home (i used it about 5 years) i only saw the lights for my heat strips come on twice one cold winter and never again. iput some wood in teh indoor fireplace and the heat stips went out. here in ontario about 2 years ago they had a big grant out and you could install one for about 3,500. I still use my system for air conditioning and it is quite reaonable for that
yes theheat coming out of the registers is not hot but you can still have a warm house. standing on the registers to warm up wont work though (like with an OWB)
i think if i remember right, the guy told me the air coming out of the registers will be about 7 to 10 degrees warmer than the room tempature.
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well styles here are common in the city because of room but you need a lot of weels if you are to have a properly sized system. my system is burried 5 feet deep. i have 3500 feet of pipe in the ground (thats a lot of wells around here) here the rock is at about 80 feet so i would need about 22 wells (that would add up for sure)
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The electric co op here has incentives, but there minimal, like $1000 off a geothermal system. They won't allow me to advertise in any of there publications but openly allow geothermal installers to advertise. I think that pretty much speaks for itself, then to see how they fought me on my solar and went as far as saying it doesn't work in ky lol
As much as me and you have talked Willie I'm simply amazed how many programs you all have related to energy. Although I'm not a huge fan of govt involvement in a lot of things, I think putting money towards clean energy is important but you can't do it how we do here in the u.s. example would be giving billions to solar companies for no reason, the extra money should have went to consumers who wanted to invest in solar that way the money would naturally flow with supply and demand. But some liked the idea of giving the companies billions and wondering why it didn't help demand
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our government has handed out billions to them guys putting up those huge windmill and they are mostly from teh states. they areup here taking all our government will give. the biggest windmill crooks here is an outfit called "nextera" or something like that and i am told it is owned by florida power company?
there are lots of goofy government incentives, some good some bad
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our government has handed out billions to them guys putting up those huge windmill and they are mostly from teh states. they areup here taking all our government will give. the biggest windmill crooks here is an outfit called "nextera" or something like that and i am told it is owned by florida power company?
there are lots of goofy government incentives, some good some bad
Yea some of them will never pay off or help anyone really, those are the under the table deals where a company like you mentioned lines a few pockets and there in the loop
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NEVER is it a good idea for our government to STEAL my money or yours to inflate or prop up an industry that can't make it on it's own, NEVER, this is just another govt scam.
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geothermal is far better than a heat pump sitting outside your home
Even when it costs 4x as much!?
To me geothermal is the biggest joke ever... When it first came out my parents bought one, it cost about $7500 to do there home, now the same job is in the 22k range.
There is heat pumps now that have crazy high seer ratings, some 22 seer or higher, geothermal is normally 17 seer
With that being said though, technically geo should be better for heating because its heat source is warmer than the winter air. From what I've saw, a heat pump here in ky quits working and keeping up on most homes around 40 degrees, the geothermal takes that number down to probably 28-30 before we start seeing the heat strips come on. My parents electric bills aren't bad, $240 in winter, but there house doesn't feel warm at all, even when it reads 73 it doesn't feel the same as the owb heat
Man, all my friends are telling me to dump that pesky wood burning boiler idea and go all geothermal heat pump!
The geothermal would be more important for summer cooling than winter heating.
Neal
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Wow, I think you are severely overthinking it, it does not need to be complicated, Storage tanks/ blending tanks ?
Well the idea behind that is to blend the geothermal and wood systems together. The most important heat point is the output of the tank, not the boiler or pump direct output. That way the systems have a simple path of combination, and buffering, where one system can spool up while the other spools down.
As far as the complications go, I hope to do some serious SCADA control of the system, so that the entire house is easy to maintain, tracks usage, predicts zone settings, ect.
This way I can tie in the entire energy systems (I hope to have 5-10kw of wind turbine installed, and possibly some solar), along with all the other home automation controls and monitors.
That said, how can I have both systems, and simple it down?
Neal
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Something ive noticed is how things travel in waves around the country. . Here, 10-15 years ago the buzz was all about geothermal. now, not so much at all. Sounds like from various comments that the ne is in a similar frnzy over geo as we were here years ago. Up keep and rising cost put it out of reach for most
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I'm in a Co op power at well..Biggest thing right now in New Hampshire is the Northern Pass...Its a 180 mile pass from Quebec to Deerfield NH of Hydropower.. Lots of Opposition and Favorable on this.. Due to the impact of the scenery etc etc..
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Just had another idea, would three way valves to put the output of the geothermal heat pumps outputs directly into the plenum exchanger for the cold output and the hot water exchanger for the hot output before it returns into the geoloop?
Neal
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Ok, so I know it looks a little daunting, but here is my sketch so far:
http://www.nealmastel.com/fs/Geo-Boiler.pdf (http://www.nealmastel.com/fs/Geo-Boiler.pdf)
I'm thinking I may need to implement some thermostatic mixing valves to keep the temps down after the heat exchangers for the living quarters and the garage/shop.
Looking for suggestions for make/model on the circulators, the heat exchangers, and the garage radiators. I would like to get some circulators that have some discrete - or even better some analog 4-20ma feedback so I can design failure scenarios into the control system.
Neal
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Have been doing some research and reading a lot. Did some updating to my original ideas. :thumbup:
http://www.nealmastel.com/FS/geo-furnace.pdf (http://www.nealmastel.com/FS/geo-furnace.pdf)
Neal
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Yup it's called the yuppie green energy bandwagon. And it does travel like a weather front or waves.
I think the OP has a perfect design planned out, now comes the final design by a radiant engineer, John Siegenthaler has many plans and diagrams with geo/ wood systems. The theory with a hybrid system like this is to be. Elite level efficiency. And to get into that level were talking 6 figures for an install. Yup if you want to achieve the claimed eff levels and system reliability, your not gonna do it with a $20-30k geo unit. The type of radiant will need supply temps under 130 degrees to be able to operate in the 90th percentile of efficiency. This means all infloor and in slab radiant with some climate panels or radiant panels. The zone and system controls alone for your diagram will be big dollar. This something we see in magazine projects. With mechanical rooms you can eat off of. Not a DIY project. I like it.
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I think the OP has a perfect design planned out, now comes the final design by a radiant engineer, John Siegenthaler has many plans and diagrams with geo/ wood systems. The theory with a hybrid system like this is to be. Elite level efficiency.
If he can get the Feds to acknowledge his system as a true hybrid system, does this mean the OP will be able to drive in the HOV lane? :-\ :o :P
Double benefit possibly...
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Yup it's called the yuppie green energy bandwagon. And it does travel like a weather front or waves.
I think the OP has a perfect design planned out, now comes the final design by a radiant engineer, John Siegenthaler has many plans and diagrams with geo/ wood systems. The theory with a hybrid system like this is to be. Elite level efficiency. And to get into that level were talking 6 figures for an install. Yup if you want to achieve the claimed eff levels and system reliability, your not gonna do it with a $20-30k geo unit. The type of radiant will need supply temps under 130 degrees to be able to operate in the 90th percentile of efficiency. This means all infloor and in slab radiant with some climate panels or radiant panels. The zone and system controls alone for your diagram will be big dollar. This something we see in magazine projects. With mechanical rooms you can eat off of. Not a DIY project. I like it.
I plan to give it a he'll of a go! Haha. I've been studying lots of John's work. What an invaluable resource. Folks here are also helpful.
I'd like to run the radiant closer to 120*. 130 is not practical out of the geo unit.
Neal
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Trust me on going with radiant heat, ITS almost like CRACK - with out all the horrible side affect.
Once you have radiant you will not know how you lived with out it. No more cold tile floor, for the wife to complain about when running to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
In regards to how to hook up system, may want to scope out the Central Boiler website - they have soem pretty good illistrations on how to hook up different application, even mulitboiler. :thumbup:
Also, you can get away with not having a back up; heat source, pump, fill in the blank. Just remember MURPHY's LAW - everythign seems to break just after close on the coldest day, darkest night ....
I woudl never install a heating system with only one heat source, yes new equipment is less likely to break, but it does not mean it WON'T.
Have you started looking into what your BTU load will be for your set up??? Cause your OWB, might need to be a BEAST (If memory serves, garage = 120' x 60' = 7200sf) + SnowMelt + DHW + Hot Tub + Pool = ALOT of BTU's I feel
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Trust me on going with radiant heat, ITS almost like CRACK - with out all the horrible side affect.
Once you have radiant you will not know how you lived with out it. No more cold tile floor, for the wife to complain about when running to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
In regards to how to hook up system, may want to scope out the Central Boiler website - they have soem pretty good illistrations on how to hook up different application, even mulitboiler. :thumbup:
Also, you can get away with not having a back up; heat source, pump, fill in the blank. Just remember MURPHY's LAW - everythign seems to break just after close on the coldest day, darkest night ....
I woudl never install a heating system with only one heat source, yes new equipment is less likely to break, but it does not mean it WON'T.
Have you started looking into what your BTU load will be for your set up??? Cause your OWB, might need to be a BEAST (If memory serves, garage = 120' x 60' = 7200sf) + SnowMelt + DHW + Hot Tub + Pool = ALOT of BTU's I feel
Indeed, but I need the geo for cooling in the summer.
Neal
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This glycol thread got me thinking http://outdoorwoodfurnaceinfo.com/forum/index.php?topic=5181.0 (http://outdoorwoodfurnaceinfo.com/forum/index.php?topic=5181.0)
What about designing this (my proposed) system with no antifreeze at all. Collecting temp data from the OWF and outside slab circuits I could keep the temp above freezing.
I did intend to already have all circulators on a UPS unit, and it would be designed to hold until the backup generator came online, in the case of a power outage.
Going with a 100% water system would allow me to rid the design of multiple FPHE, as well as lower the maintenance, keeping the glycol mix at the proper ratio, as well as the glycol breaking down.
Seems to me it would be much simpler to write a few lines of emergency code to keep the temps up in the necessary circuits, rather than dealing with glycol injection and/or replacement on multiple circuits.
Neal
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YES, not having FPHE makes things some what less complex (by complex I mean CHEAPER :thumbup:). FPHE are not a bad thing - when system is designed and sized correctly; like all things radiant
However if you are thinking about adding DHW or a back-up gas boiler you will most CERTAINLY need a FPHE or some other type of heat exchanger; cause most gas boilers lose warrenties over little things like, beign in an open system (FINE PRINT KINDA STUFF).
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Reworked the drawing a bit, it is getting a bit more involved now, but I think I fixed up the issues with getting the full BTUs out of the stove and into a buffer/storage tank at manageable velocities. I also broke out the loads into three primary circuits that utilize the stratification of the storage tank, drawing the radiant floor circuits from the bottom of the tank and the SIM and forced air exchangers from the top. It also covers me a little on the spring and fall crossover days, I can run the heat pump in chilling mode and run the forced air for cooling during the high heat of the day and have the storage tank heated for night time radiant heating requirements. I also have some three way valves in place to utilize the desuper portion of the heat pump for DHW heating and hot tub heating during the main chilling sequence during summertime. I was hoping to be able to harvest some hour by hour forecasting to incorporate into the outdoor reset program and PID control via the control PLC.
Previous Version:
http://www.nealmastel.com/FS/geo-furnace.pdf (http://www.nealmastel.com/FS/geo-furnace.pdf)
Present Version:
http://www.nealmastel.com/FS/geo-furnace-rev1-1.pdf (http://www.nealmastel.com/FS/geo-furnace-rev1-1.pdf)
The new config should have layer options - such that you should be able to turn off or on layers to isolate certain circuits, making it much easier to navigate. In Adobe Reader: View>Navigation Panels>Layers. Let me know if it works, I did notice a few items that needed to be put on the proper layers. :bash:
Neal
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Nice bit of work there.
Consistent temp control and destratification problems I see.
Should always mix down to get to supply temp. When pulling by layer, the supply always has to be higher than the return, as shown the return will destrat the tank or make for very inconsistent temps.
On the load loop with fan coils, they should be series loops piped in parallel otherwise each downstream circuit will have lower supply temps regardless of how much the primary circ is moving. Header size will have some impact.
Are those two ZV's on each WB S&R circuit? Explain?
You have a lot going on there, I think you might be able to eliminate a few ZV's
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Nice bit of work there.
Consistent temp control and destratification problems I see.
Should always mix down to get to supply temp. When pulling by layer, the supply always has to be higher than the return, as shown the return will destrat the tank or make for very inconsistent temps.
On the load loop with fan coils, they should be series loops piped in parallel otherwise each downstream circuit will have lower supply temps regardless of how much the primary circ is moving. Header size will have some impact.
Are those two ZV's on each WB S&R circuit? Explain?
You have a lot going on there, I think you might be able to eliminate a few ZV's
I should be able to pull supply above return for 3rd primary loop. I think I will end up with a custom tank build. I was obviously working with the graphic instead of building my own tank design. I will work on that for the next step. Good catch.
The zone valves on the supply and return lines are to isolate the tank from the thermal siphon of the owf circuits when the tank is in chilling mode. Perhaps not necessary if all the piping is routed properly from overhead.
Neal
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Also I can place the fan coils in priority loading in controller design. The main one is for the living space forced air system, the other two are for garage/shop cooling and are less important. 2" mains should cover it but I am still running some load analysis for the building.
Neal
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Looks mainly an open system, did you mean to do that?
External concrete slabs will such a lot of btu's.
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Looks mainly an open system, did you mean to do that?
External concrete slabs will such a lot of btu's.
What do you mean?
Yes they do, that's why I have a larger sized furnace and a storage tank. I hope to idle it at 40* or so. :thumbup:
Neal
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The OWB is not pressurized and seems to feed straight into the rest of the system with no heat exchanger?
How big is the slab that you are looking to ice melt on, I would seriously have a glycol mix in that, if it was clod and dry you would not want to heat it.
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The OWB is not pressurized and seems to feed straight into the rest of the system with no heat exchanger?
How big is the slab that you are looking to ice melt on, I would seriously have a glycol mix in that, if it was clod and dry you would not want to heat it.
The OWB is not pressurized, and it feeds into the tank via dual coil heat exchangers. A & B are the primary coil exchanger connection points, and H & G are the connections for the secondary coil exchanger. Any of the ports labels 1. are pressurized supply and returns of the tank.
The rest of the system is pressurized. :thumbup:
24x42 for the large slab. The slabs will by glycol circuits, as well as the boiler most likely.
Neal
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The OWB is not pressurized and seems to feed straight into the rest of the system with no heat exchanger?
How big is the slab that you are looking to ice melt on, I would seriously have a glycol mix in that, if it was clod and dry you would not want to heat it.
The OWB is not pressurized, and it feeds into the tank via dual coil heat exchangers. A & B are the primary coil exchanger connection points, and H & G are the connections for the secondary coil exchanger. Any of the ports labels 1. are pressurized supply and returns of the tank.
The rest of the system is pressurized. :thumbup:
24x42 for the large slab. The slabs will by glycol circuits, as well as the boiler most likely.
Neal
Good thinking on the slabs, we've had plenty of bitterly cold days this last winter but zero snow.
I only have the sidewalk melter, used a separate 5 gallon tank and 20 fphe for that, still a large draw on the rest of the system when it's first started. Especially if it's been below zero for a considerable amount of time. Have never timed it but eventually the return water from the slab is within 15 degrees of the supply.
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The OWB is not pressurized and seems to feed straight into the rest of the system with no heat exchanger?
How big is the slab that you are looking to ice melt on, I would seriously have a glycol mix in that, if it was clod and dry you would not want to heat it.
The OWB is not pressurized, and it feeds into the tank via dual coil heat exchangers. A & B are the primary coil exchanger connection points, and H & G are the connections for the secondary coil exchanger. Any of the ports labels 1. are pressurized supply and returns of the tank.
The rest of the system is pressurized. :thumbup:
24x42 for the large slab. The slabs will by glycol circuits, as well as the boiler most likely.
Neal
Good thinking on the slabs, we've had plenty of bitterly cold days this last winter but zero snow.
I only have the sidewalk melter, used a separate 5 gallon tank and 20 fphe for that, still a large draw on the rest of the system when it's first started. Especially if it's been below zero for a considerable amount of time. Have never timed it but eventually the return water from the slab is within 15 degrees of the supply.
Do you idle it at all or just engage the circuit when necessary?
I'm also hoping to utilize the slabs as chill sinks in the summer time. On nights when it gets into the 60s I can help the geo unit chill the tank.
Neal
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I like all the ideas you have Neil, but the only question I have is will you ever see a payoff? It just sounds so expensive, maybe that is not an issue I don't know all the pictures of this build should be fun to look at.
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I like all the ideas you have Neil, but the only question I have is will you ever see a payoff? It just sounds so expensive, maybe that is not an issue I don't know all the pictures of this build should be fun to look at.
I dunno, at $3-$4k saved per winter I bet I will see payback before the furnace dies. At least I hope so.....
Neal
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No idling, just used as necessary. It will melt 16 inches of snow off no problem, but with the snow and wood situation what it was this winter I was worried about running out of wood before I could get to the woods to cut more so most of the time I'd shovel the walk off then just ran the circuit long enough to melt off the rest and dry the walk off.
Pretty neat to see steam coming of the sidewalk when its 0 out.
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I would think so unless you have 100k into your heating lol!
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I would think so unless you have 100k into your heating lol!
I hope to have heating and geo all done for under $50k.
Neal