Hi,
I have a Teledyne Laars MiniTherm JV75 (75k Btu). I have about 52ft of hot water baseboard up on the 2nd floor apt of a 2 family house and I want to add about 30ft of baseboard in my bsmt.

I know I need 2 zone valves. I have a plumber getting an estimate ready for me. He was just at my house and he mentioned something to my wife about an expansion tank or something. I know I have an expansion tank on it now.

I am awaiting a call from him, but I’d like to know if there is anything I should be on the look out for when I talk to him.

I'd do the work myself but I have never worked with heat before. I am pretty handy and have done all the other work in my basement. Is this a project I can do myself??

Alrighty... Plumber JUST called me

Here’s what he said I needed:
34ft of baseboard
New Transformer
Thermostat (I already knew that)
2 zone valves
Purge T’s
Fill valve
Bigger expansion tank

$3200
(Someone PLEASE pick me up off of the floor)


Thanks
Joe

 

If you don't already have a diaphragm type expansion tank, now is a good time to put one on. If you have one and it is a #15 (small one) you should probably put on the larger one (#30). All the other parts he mentioned, you do need. If you are handy, you could probably do the job. The worst part is cutting into the current system. Once you get you tees in and a couple of valves, the rest can be done at your pace. If you turn it on and it leaks, just turn it back off and fix the leaks. Meanwhile the rest of the house can still be used as always. If you could get me a picture of the boiler and nearby piping, I could help you make a parts list to cut the zone valve and return in at the correct location.

Ken

 

Thanks, Ken.

I will snap a few tonight when I get home from work 5pm eastern time. I will post in here.

Thanks for your help and I hope I can do this ( I think I can). I did manage to do the electric in my bsmt with help from this site.

Talk to you later
Joe

 

The price doesn't surprise me.

I recently put a new zone in my basement as part of finishing it off. I installed all three radiators, ran all the piping, stubbed it up to the boiler, and conducted a pressure test, before calling in the plumber. The boiler and all accesories were new last year, and it was piped to accomodate additional zones. The plumber installed a relay, a circulator, a flow check, 2 ball valves, and a vew feet of copper pipe, wired it up, BAMB !!! 3 hours and 600 bucks later, basement heat.

But do get a second bid (or DIY).

 

Here's a pic.
I emailed you too , Ken.


Pic didn't work..sorry

Thanks
Joe

 

 

Advice from Ken via Email

The fact that there are tees is helpful. The only down side is that there are no valves. You will need to shut the boiler down and drain it.

Then you should put a valve where the cap is on the return side and a zone valve on each supply pipe. The one that has the bend in it going up and the one that is now capped.

It would be helpful to put a ball valve in where tha cap is
now on the supply and then you can work from there at will. You should get the transformer installed so that you can operate the main zone as soon as you install the valve. You can also lock it open and do the wiring later.

Many options. Choose the one that you like best and I'll help you get it together. I would suggest using Honeywell zone valves. They are easy to wire and don't draw much current.

Ken

 

Pardon my ignorance, but I just want to make sure I know exactly what you mean. What about the Expansion tank? What is involved in changing it? Also in my original post I said that the plumber said something about a “fill valve”.


The fact that there are tees is helpful. The only down side is that there are no valves. You will need to shut the boiler down and drain it. (I’ll check the manual on how to do that.)


Then you should put a valve where the cap is on the return side (What kind of valve? That is to shut off the return to my new zone baseboard pipes, right?)

and a zone valve on each supply pipe. The one that has the bend in it going up and the one that is now capped. (So, I’m putting a zone valve after the NEW ball valve and in the bent pipe?. Can you please clarify after looking at this link ? http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/Heati...ZoneValves.htm )

It would be helpful to put a ball valve in where the cap is now on the supply and then you can work from there at will. (Like this one ? http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/Heati...BallValves.htm )

You should get the transformer installed so that you can operate the main zone as soon as you install the valve. (What size transformer ? Would this one be good ? http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/Heati...sformerbuy.htm )


Thanks so much
Joe

 

You are correct on all items. The 3/4" ball valve with lead wires is fine for your application. Since you will need to control both zones independently, you will need zone valves on both of the 3/4" lines in your picture. Since you will be connecting the original zone back to an active loop, you don't really need to install a ball valve there. The new loop will need one to hold system water pressure (the zone valve won't) until you finish the baseboard. On the return, you already have a ball valve on the existing loop and you would need to install one on the new loop. You will also need a purge tee on the new loop and that can go near the new ball valve but on the loop side, not the boiler side of the valve. One of you pictures showed an automatic fill valve, so you don't need to replace it unless you know that it doesn't work. As for the expansion tank, you can replace it easily while the system is drained to install the zone valves. Just get a #30 and put it in right where yours is now.

 

Thanks again..
The purge tee is the piece that a hose would hook up to (the one one the return) ?

As far as the Transformer goes ... According to my manual, I already have a 24v transformer, so the "NEW" one would be different only that it's for zone valves?

Also, in my orig post I stated that the plumber said I needed a "fill valve". Has that been taken care of in what you've already suggested to me?




Joe

 

Yes, the purge tee is the one that gets a valve to hook a hose to.

You can probably use the transformer you already have also. If it has 40 va rating or higher it will handle 2 honeywell zone valves and your gas valve too.

The fill valve is the cone shaped one in one of your pictures. It appeared to be green. It is probably OK and only needs replacement if it fails.

 

Great info once again and this is all making sense to me. Thanks for all your time and help.

How would I know if it fails?

Thanks
Joe

 

Its job is to regulate the pressure in your heating system. If it fails, you will either have too little or too much pressure in the system. Either way, you will know you have a problem.

 

the 40VA transformers will typically handle 3 Taco zone valves, this is the edge of their max... all three running at the same time is unlikely is the theroy. I like the Sarco zone valve,a sub division of Honeywell, much smaller and draw less than half the amperage. I think you can do eight on a 40VA... The plummer may want to put in a 50 or 75 VA which usually has a circuit breaker built in too. This would handle most anything, even another Taco!

 

Can anyone tell me what the difference between a Honeywell "Motorized" zone valve and a "Low Voltage" zone valve is ?

The difference in price is about $25-30.

Thanks
Joe

 

A Honeywell zone valve is a motorized valve and they make them in low or line voltage. You want low voltage but that still doesn't really answer your question. Erie also makes a motorized zone valve and it is priced less than Honeywell. What brand are you comparing to Honeywell?

 

Thanks Ken. I Understand now.

One other question.. How do I perform a "pressure test" to insure no leaks on my soldered joints? I'd like to do that b4 I run the water through the lines.

Can I use an air compressor somehow?

THanks
Joe

 

You could but your best plan would be to put a drain valve at the lowest point somewhere it is accessable. The will insure you won't have any leaks. (Just kidding) It is better than having to cut the pipe and try to catch the water from an open pipe. If you pressure test with air, just go to 40 psi and soap every connection. I have seen air tests hold because flux was cloggong the leak and then when the system got hot, it softened it up and leaked. Good luck and if you clean all fittings and pipe including a quick sanding of the face of the fitting, use a very small amount of flux and not too much heat, you will be fine.

 

You would have to do that before you tied the lines to the boiler. Just tie them off and put a air gauge and schrader valve to put air in and let it sit. Like ken said do it with the water . ED

 

a few things I noticed in the pic...
a.)It appears you are missing the back flow preventer, unless it's outside the pic? Its usually beside the WPR...I didn't see it.
b.) The nipple entering the air scoop is way too short... minimum length is 18",...
c.)I can't tell from the picture but it looks like the air purge vent is a coin vent instead? A little hard to tell from the picture... but if it is, the air scoop serves no purpose in this system.

as for your question about the expansion tank, ...what would happen to a can full of water with no air pocket, if heated to 180 F? Now what if it was only half full, and had a half full balloon in the other half? On the first, the can would explodebecause its volume would increase and have nowhere to go. On the second as it increased in volume, it would apply pressure to the balloon, because the volume of gasses are compressable.
When you add more water to the system, it needs to go somewhere when its heated...thus the expansion tank!

 

The back flow preventer is outside the pic.

This work was done in 1990 so as far as the nipple and coin vent, I'm really not sure of why it was intstalled like it was.

Ive also notice that I do not have a ball valve on the current loop, so I guess I'd have to turn the water off at the meter or at the fill valve or at the valve right before the back flow preventer?

Ive also noticed from the Teledye Laars manual that that have the check valves showing on the return side and not the supply side.

THanks
Joe

 

Just wanted to thank everyone for all of your information. I understand my system alot more thanks to you guys.

I was able to find a licensed plumber assist me in all the hookups and draining etc at the boiler. I now have heat in my basement. I will get you a finished pic soon. And I'm proud to say that none of my soldering on the baseboard leaked (this was my first time soldering).

Another note of the expansion tank..
This plumber did not think I needed a #30 expansion tank. I did purchase one , but it was too wide and it would not clear one of the pipes on the boiler. His explanation to me about not needing the #30 was "You should only need a bigger tank if you increase the boiler size." I had 2 plumbers say that I needed the #30 and 2 said I didn't.

P.S. I wound up with about 39ft of baseboard.

 

these are sized according to the amount of water in the system, to include the boiler and all of its attached piping. You'll know when the boiler heats up if the boiler pressure shoots up near the high twenties,...go to the #30 tank. or add another #15. What aws up with that air scoop piping? Did the plummer fix that?
Most plummers won't put on the 18" nipple because it LOOKS out of place... If this is the concern, get an Spirovent! If you have little space, this needs only a short nipple.

 

I went to check the pressure and it was about 27 or so. I installed a #30 tank and the pressure dropped back down to 20. Thanks so much for your help.

Scoop wasn't touched and nothing was said about it.

Joe

 

don't fix it. If it starts to get air bound, get the auto air vent installed on the air scoop, and leave the cap very loose so that it can release air if needed.

 

Question related to these posts. I've just gotten two estimates on having a new zone installed. One contractor wants to use zone valves and the other wants to run a new return line for that zone and a second circulator motor. Of course, each thinks the other approach is weak. Thoughts? This is for a basement that is currently on the same zone as the rest of the house. Gas burner, baseboard registers. Zone valves sounds simpler, but will it work adequately?

 

as your control system, just add another. The only thing is a 40VA transformer will only do three Tacos (the common brand used) if you add a fourth, an additional transformer is required.

 

...which is that right now the whole house (upstairs and downstairs) is one zone, so there are no existing zone valves. One t-stat, and the only adjustments is me manually adjusting the manual shutoff knobs for the three loops to force more hot water downstairs. Clearly, this is only marginally effective.

 

Given the choice, I'll do circulators every time. Zone valves are probably cheaper to install but if your one circulator goes down, you are dead in the water. Also with zone valves you have to size the circulator for the entire load & it can get noisy if only one zone is calling for heat. Granted, this is rare but it does happen.

 

Its not too hard to balance but is time consuming. Start on a day when the heat isn't really calling. Shut off the service switch on the side of the boiler. raise the thermostat to 80. Then go to the boilers two return pipes (upstairs and down stairs). feel their temps, then fire up the boiler service switch and feel which one gets hot first. Then choke the hot one down a bit and leave the other full open. Shut off the boiler and wait an hour. Come back and do it again, till they both get warm together. This should help them warm at an even pace. Of course the most accurate temperature would be measured when they leave the last baseboard output end...
If you only have one zone valve you won't need another transformer.

 

I definitely tried balancing the manual valves and it helped. However, it also taught me that because the rooms lose heat at different rates, this really doesn't do the trick. I can force enough hot water downstairs to make it nice and warm, but the downstairs loses heat as it moves upstairs and by the time upstairs has cooled enough to kick the heat on, the downstairs is freezing. Hot-cold-hot-cold.

So a new thermostat is definite, but should I go with eletronically managed zone valves or a circulator (circulator is up 1-0 right now)?

 

A month or so ago I posted for some info on putting a new zone in the house and as I'm working in my office (which is now warm), thought I'd follow up with a recap/autopsy.

Got two quotes for adding three taco valves, a new expansion tank and scoop (to remove the air), both in the $2200 range.

The final work was to install three zone valves on the three loops, two of them ganged together to service the upstairs and one with a separate thermostat for the downstairs. They also added the scoop and tank and pulled the old tank out.

The work took much longer to perform (>8 hrs), because the contractor didn't wire the zone valves right and couln't seem to bleed the air when he refilled the system. After calling for backup at 7pm, they thought it was working when they left at 11pm in the evening, but the next morning the upstairs was 5 degrees over the thermostat's setting and still cranking out heat. They'd basically wired it so that the valves stayed open all the time, so attempting to heat the downstairs also heated the upstairs. In addition, the downstairs was radiators were cold. Not good.

Second tech, second day: Pulled all the wires out of the Taco valves and rewired them correctly. However, because the downstairs zone had a vertical loop (from furnace, up over ceiling, and down another wall to the registers), we had airlock in that loop that the circulator couldn't overcome. After a little head scratching, we hooked a garden hose to the main drain spigot, opened the spigot for that loop, closed off the other zones, and purged it in the reverse direction. Only took a few seconds of water to force the air bubble out. Voila!

Since then, it has worked just as hoped. Downstairs is nice and comfortable and I'm not heating it when I don't need it. Although expensive, the project passed the spouse test with flying colors, because she no longer has to wrap up in an blanket to watch TV. Thanks for the advice.

 

circulators were most likely located on the return side. This is rarely a problem when they are on the supply side , even with mono flo tee's. Also, circulators are not pumps...they work rather like a Ferris wheel...when you purge air you use water pressure and tempoarily bypass the PRV and use high pressure water to push the air out.

 

Kfield-

Hi there was wondering if you could help. I have a heatmaker mark ii and I want to add another zone. I have expierence sodering and running pipes but I have never really worked with my furnace. I know I am going to have to put zone values on the pipes but I am under the impresion that that thermostate wires will connect to them, and the current thermostate wire connects directly into the furnace into a little closed metal box. Could you explain the process to me and maybe were I should begin? thanks

 

zerooverdraft,

First, I'd wait until spring. Second, if you're knowledgeable you can sweat the pipes yourself and set up the plumbing, but if you're not familiar with furnaces or zone valves, I'd have a professional do it--knowing it's right is worth the expense

 

I second waiting until spring... but we'll help ya through it if you do decide to tackle the job yourself.

Are you heating a NEW space? or a previously unheated space?

You need to do a HEAT LOSS CALCULATION on the space in order that you install the proper amount of heat emitters.

There are options for the zone valve wiring. You can purchase a panel that all the components connect to, and this makes wiring much easier. You can also use individual wiring to the zone valves.

The existing thermostat is removed from the boiler, and wired to one of the zone valves. The new thermostat is wired to the other zone valve. Then, there is wiring that goes from the zone valves to where the existing thermostat WAS wired.

The idea is that the thermostat tells the zone valve to open, and then when the valve is open, it tells the boiler to fire up.

Tell us more about your plan...

 

I am in the process of remodeling my basement. The gas forced hot water furnace already had a second circulator plumbed for the basement so I thought I would just replace the pump (which wasn't working) and plumb new radiators (which have been removed). After plumbing one of the new radiators and replacing the pump I wired it up this morning with mixed results.

Now, I'm thinking the original set up may not have been done properly. There aren't any valves isolating the two zones, the second zone is just plumped as another radiator line. The controllers are identical Honeywell single zone controllers, each having it's own circulator and its own thermostat, both connected to a third controller on the furnace. When I connect a thermostat to the second zone controller I get nothing, but if I jump the thermostat wires (probably shouldn't do this?) the pump and furnace kick on like they should.

Two questions: Do I need a new controller? Do I need valves to isolate the two zones?

This may not be enough information. I look forward to answering any clarifying questions.

 

Yeah, we need more specifics... make/model of boiler, make/model of what you are calling 'controllers' (which are probably 'relays'), make/model of the box on the boiler (which is your aquastat).

There are two types of zoned systems, one uses electric valves for each zone, and one pump shared... the other uses individual pumps. There should be 'check valves' on a circulator zoned system.

Jumping the thermostat wires is OK... WHERE did you jump them? At the thermostat? At the relay? If jumping the wires causes the relay to click and start the system, that tells us that the relay is OK... the problem is in the thermostat, or it's wiring.

To best help with this project, we really should see some pictures of what you are working with... free account / Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket / upload pics there / drop a link here for us to view. Please take lots of pics... and we need close and far views... they should be clear and large enough for old eyes to see.

 

Here are some photos of the furnace.

Pictures by vtlundy - Photobucket

I connected the main circuit thermostat to the secondary circuit relay and everything worked fine except the warm return water was getting forced through the main circuit pump into the main circuit return manifold. I'm thinking I need to add flo valves on the discharge side of the circulators. My thought was to put one in place of the first 90 above the main circulator, then put in a T between the first and second 90. This T could then accommodate the water supply line which comes in between the two circulators, the other flo valve, and the secondary circulator. Does make sense? Does this sound right?

 

It does look as though you need some check valves... problem is, your space is limited without some repiping... and you want to be careful about where the check valves are located... too close to an elbow or tee is often not a good choice... the flow may be turbulent and cause the check valves to be noisy...

There are circulators available that have check valves built in to them... any of the Taco variety with 'IFC' in the model number have them.

I can't tell a lot from the pictures... weird angles and such, lots of hidden pipes, etc...

How is the supply side laid out? Is there a flow check valve somewhere on the supply? If you didn't have one, I would be surprised that you aren't complaining of 'ghost flow' in the system...

Step back with the camera and try to get a few of the complete system...