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[juddspaintballs]

In a haste to get the boiler up and running at this house a couple years ago, I just did one big loop from my boiler to the furnace to the water heater and back to the boiler.  It works, but I want to expand on the system in the future.  At my old house, I had Earth Lee build two headers out of black iron that were 1-1/4" bodies with two 1" ports and five 3/4" ports.  Both ends are open on both headers.  I plumbed them up so one was an inlet and one was an outlet and the devices between were what transferred water from inlet to outlet.

At this house, I want to do a manifold system for easy expansion as I add to the system.  I was thinking that I'd take those two headers and couple them together end to end so I have one long header with a 1-1/4" body and four 1" ports and ten 3/4" ports.  I'd put a separately controlled Taco 007 pump on each loop I want and use the upstream ports for supply and downstream for return, matching port sizes of course.  What do you think of that? 

[wreckit87]

I hope you don't need much flow for your circuits. A pair of 1" already exceeds the volume a single 1-1/4" trunk can support, much less the five 3/4" loops if all are running at once. If any 3 zones are calling at one given time, the other 4 will get nothing if they decide to call also, assuming a full draw from the zone pumps. There will need to be some sort of balancing valves on each zone to throttle flow and balance the system. May I ask what all of these 7 zones are supporting? Are you hoping to make this a sort of primary/secondary type setup to maintain flow through the main loop if there is no call for heat or why not leave the manifolds separate? Also the water heater ought to be first in line before the furnace coil as it has the greatest need for heat

[juddspaintballs]

As of now, I only have the water heater and coil in the furnace to heat, but eventually I'm going to add radiant loops to individual rooms in the house and mostly stop using the coil in the furnace.  I don't think any one zone would ever call for full flow.  The water heater is only a sidearm exchanger for now. 

This house setup will change over the next few years.  I need to be able to adjust the system quickly and easily as it changes.  Eventually, I'm probably even going to move the boiler and heat the detached garage, too. 

[E Yoder]

Plumb the domestic water first,  Stack the heating loads in order of water temp needed.
Then the secondary loops can exceed the primary flow without an issue. That's assuming there's no hot water baseboard that requires a tight delta.

[juddspaintballs]

OK, I'll do it up that way next heating season.  What controller are people using to turn the Taco 007's on and off with thermostats? 

[wreckit87]

Taco SR506-4 will run 6 zone pumps, not sure about 7. May have to combine a 3 and a 4? SR503-4 and SR504-4. If you plan to run all zone pumps, perhaps the 007E-F2 ECM units might be worth looking into from an efficiency standpoint as they draw less than half the amps of a standard 007 (85% less they are claiming) and only about $40 more upfront than a standard 007. I have a distaste for Taco as a rule, but these guys are starting to bring me around.