SO you may remember me from the noisy boiler thread.

http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=326280


I have a spare circulator laying around for my taco 011, but I don't think that's the issue anymore.

I drained my system by connecting a hose to the outlet and then opening all my zone valves and hand valves. Everything drained out nicely.

I turned on the water to refill the system and fabulous. Flipped on the boiler and it wasn't making that god awful low tone humming sound. I was pretty happy. UNtil..........

While running i wanted to shut the zone valve for the pool heater. Once I rotated that i got a lot of water turbulance noise and the pump sounded like it was going super fast. I opened it and after a few seconds everything was back to normal, but now I have that damn low tone humming sound again.

I'm wondering if the raco 011 is too powerful to run my 3 zones without getting the extra water from the pool heater? I realize this is not very informative, but i'll draw up a schematic of my entire system when I get home.

Also is it best to close all the manual valves on the return lines for zones when filling back up the system?

Thanks

 

So that is my setup basically. When I try to close zone valve 4 I get a lot of water turbulance and it just sounds bad. I have also tried closing zone valve 4 and faucet 4 with similar results.

Funny thing is I had them closed before I drained the system and I didn't get all the weird noises.

Thoughts suggestions?

 

Your circulator is probably way too much without the pool.

When refilling the system, all valves should be open.

 

Hmmm that's what I was afraid of. it may explain the loud humming I was getting when the pool valve was closed.

I'm sort of confused as to what happenes if I leave the pool heater valves open, but don't have the pool pump going. It heats up the pool heater chamber, but the pool pump isn't circulating cold water in so I guess i'm not doing too mucn unecessary heating.


Thanks Grady.

 

Just musing out loud ... not sure if this is a possible solution or not ...

I wonder if a 'differential pressure valve' would be worth looking into in this case ? If the pump were too large for the system, when one or more zones were closed, the differential valve would open, and relieve the pump of some excess 'head' ?

 

If I were too remove the pool heater from the system. Would I just cut and cap the pool supply/return lines?


Also how does one go about calculating the size of taco they would need?

Thanks a bunch.

 

Also I'm debating draining and refilling without closing the pool heater valve. It was quiet until I started messing with that valve.

 

Woody, what prompted you to drain and refill in the first place ?

 

I was planning on replacing the cartridge in my Taco 0011 because I thought that was the source of my noise. Then I figured I'd drain and fill to see if some debris were caught somewhere that was causing turbulance. The sound went away once i refilled, but once I started messing with valves it came back.

 

There is a 99.9% chance that the Taco 011 is NOT appropriate for your system. That is basically a specialty pump for deployment in very specific, well-designed situations. 31 ft head, 31 gpm. Wow.

Chances are you need something like a 007. Compare the pump curves here:

http://www.taco-hvac.com/uploads/Fil...CurveChart.pdf

The 0011 is a bulldozer that does 0-60 in 4.2 seconds. You need a Chevette.

Start reading about how to size a circulator here:

http://www.taco-hvac.com/uploads/Fil...irculators.pdf

We can help; plenty of knowledge here about this topic.

Get it right. Your boiler will thank you!

 

And so having leaped (above), now I looked. Seems the 0135B is a 2-stage, copper tube boiler. Might have some head loss in that heat exchanger. Documentation doesn't really speak to the head loss, flow rates, etc. Parts list doesn't help either. Could it be the old 0011 was original to the boiler?

This is probably worth tracking down a local Raypak rep and seeing what the issue is. There could be very good reasons to not mess with the circ and your problem may lie elsewhere.

 

I think the 0011 was used due to the pool heater it's attatched too. Not sure why they didn't realize it may be too much when not running the pool heater.

 

Never heard of one being described quite that way. Unique but pretty accurate. I'm gonna steer clear of that bad boy. I can see bulldozer Bubba throwing 50 ft. rooster tails now.

 

So I'm trying to figure this out, but am kinda locked up on the first step. target flow rate (btu/hr) is this a number I pull out of my arse and then design a system for it or is this number predetermined for me since the system is already built?

 

That figure is determined by the heat loss of the structure & the amount of existing radiation you have.
For example, if the heat loss is 75,000 & you have 150,000 worth of radiation @ 180º, you can lower the temperature of the water &/or reduce the flow rate (gallons/minute) to get down to the needed 75,000 or thereabout.

 

Hmmm......so what should I do if I have no idea what either of those numbers are I looked on taco's sight but didn't see anything about possible lowering the pump speed at all. Does it have to run full bore all the time?

Also the boiler is pretty much back to making the same noise it did in the first place

 

Lemmee back up to your first post Woody, and answer an un-answered question.

To re-fill a drained system, looking at your diagram:

Attach a hose to valve #5 and open that valve.

Close BLUE 1,2,3,4

Add fill water until you get a steady stream out of the hose, no bubbles.

Close fill valve. Boiler should be full of water. Close #5.

IF when you drained the boiler, you closed 1,2,3,4 prior, and zone valves were all closed, you may not have to continue, but there may be some air remaining in the piping between the valves and the boiler, so for completeness:

Attach hose to GREEN #1

Manually open YELLOW #1

Open fill valve, open GREEN #1 until water flows with no bubbles. Close GREEN. Close YELLOW. Close fill.

Repeat process for #2,3,4.

Open BLUE 1,2,3,4

Open fill and pressurize system to normal spec.

This should purge most of the piping of air.

==================================

IF you determine that you need the 011 pump for the pool heater, and it is found that the reason for the noise is too much pump head... how about a DIFFERENTIAL PRESSURE VALVE ? (I asked before, and maybe it's not a proper solution, but it seems to have gone un-noticed ?) This might not be a solution if the problem is too much flow through the boiler, because this won't change that. It WILL relieve the circ of the extra strain it's under, and IF that is the problem, might be a solution.

==================================

Another thought... how about treating the pool heater to it's own dedicated circulator if it requires a higher flow ? Cut back the 011 to a smaller circ, replace it with a circ that has the Internal Flow Check valve, and use another circ with IFC for the pool heater ?

==================================

Your noise issues could also be due to scaling/liming in the heat exchanger of the boiler... how about adding some dish detergent to the boiler water ? Trout Lake reported that's what he was told to do by the manufacturer, and reported that it worked... (search back on his username to see the thread)

 

Something like this perhaps?

 

Awesome thanks for the suggestions.

I guess my hangup is we are selling our house soon (hopefully), so i'd like to get the current configuration working. Looks like a DIFFERENTIAL PRESSURE VALVE may be the quickest possible solution.

My other thought was to just bypass the pool heater all together and replace the 0011 with a 007 model.

I had all my valves open during drain and fill, so i think i may be harboring a lot of air somewhere. I am going to go try and purge all the lines now.

 

Is this an oil boiler?

How high does your return temp on the boiler
go when you are running the heat exchanger
loop for the pool?

Pete

NEVER MIND, I SEE THAT IT HAS BYPASS PROTECTION
BUILT IN!!!

 

I went ahead and drained the system once more to replace the cartridge. Old cartridge had a lot of build up, but nothing crazy. I decided to change it because I couldn't return it. Followed NJtroopers suggestion to purge the air. Did all that and it started up fairly quietly. All zones are open at the moment and i'm going to let them go for a while to see if I can squeeze more air out. Go from there I guess.

Thanks for all your help guys. I'd be lost with out you.

Things are quiet now, but I have a feeling they may go bad once I try to close the pool heater zone valve.

 

You're going to get a lot more air out in the weeks to come, because of all that fresh water you introduced. Once it heats up to temperature, there's gonna be gobs of it ... but as long as the air scoop and autovents are working properly, you might be able to let them take care of it.

OH, by the way... you also had a question about losing heat in the pool heat exchanger... I don't think you will lose much, if any, as long as there is no circulation on the other side of the exchanger. Why not just leave the valves open ? The exchanger is inside the heated envelope of the house, yes ?

 

Yeah I think if it stays quiet I'll just leave the pool heater valves open. The weird thing is once I close them it gets loud and then it doesn't matter if they are open or close...it's just loud. Maybe the key is to never close them. Right now it's quiet....I'm going to go around and try to purge any big air bubbles out with the hose once more and call it a day.

 

I'm contacting raypak to see if this was the original circulator and why this model comes with an 011. Maybe find out some info.

In the mean time I'm doing some measuring and trying to start calculating what size taco would work for my 3 zones. If anyone wants to guess. House is 2 story daylight ranch, 2300 sq ft, built in 1974. 3 zones: One is upstairs living room kitchen, Two has upstairs 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, and 3 is all of the downstairs (not many windows since it's mostly underground. I'm leaning towards the 007 just looking at specs.

Boiler is quieter than before with the new circulator, but still hums....now it's a slighly less annoying tone It's quieter when there is air in the lines. Now it's a bit noiseier that most of the air is gone. Guess that may support the pump to strong theory.

 

If the distribution piping is straightforward (e.g., 3 series loops of 3/4" copper), then you are probably fine with a 007. In my neck of the woods, the local supply house has a whole wall of them. Almost zippo of every other style or brand. They generally work in 98% of all applications.

I had an 0010 on my system for a couple days a few years ago. It turned the living room over the boiler into a transformer shack. Unbearable hum/vibe. These are big pumps.

Here are the simple questions that when answered can get you in the proper pump ballgame.

What kind of heat emitters are in the house? If baseboard, how many feet of finned element?

How many feet of piping and how many fittings are on the longest zone?

What does Raypak say is the required flow through the boiler, or what the head loss through the boiler is?

If the boiler has a lot of head loss (several feet+), then the 007 might not have enough oomph. Which would be why they package the boiler with the 0011. The 007 would be enough for the distribution loops, but not both the loops and the boiler, too.

 

"The TACO 0011 does have a fairly sharp dropoff in head capacity as flow increases (see attached curve). The design condition is 11 GPM at about 18 feet of head, using 1-1/4 NPT piping. If your piping is larger than that, the pressure head will be lower and flow will tend to increase. If the piping is longer that a typical pipe run, that will add pressure drop which will tend to restrict flow."

That was from the raypak rep.

As for my piping from where the zone valves break off from supply and where they enter return is all 3/4" piping. The actual supply and return lines including to the pool pump are 1.25",.

 

What does the "design condition" consist of? Just the boiler or boiler plus typical distribution (which may or may not include a pool heater hx)?

It would be simpler to know what the head loss through the boiler is at the required flow rate.

I don't know enough about copper-tube boilers to know if he really means "we want 11 gpm through the boiler, and that is 18 feet of head."

If so, that is a seriously flow-restrictive design with a seriously large flow rate.

Hey Who, what do you make of this?

 

I'll write back and find out. I wonder if the motor could be going bad on the ol taco and causing the circulator to run abnormally.

 

Me? Without knowing any better, I'd guess the monster pump is more for the sake of ensuring enough flow through the pool's HX than for the sake of the boiler. Having the circuit from the boiler to the pool's HX so tightly integrated with the heating circuits makes no sense to me. You end up with way too much pump for normal heating... and whatever the rate is per kilowatt hour is what it is costing each and every hour to use that pump instead of a Taco 007/ Grundfos 15-58 sized pump. $0.15 x 24 is $3.60...

 

Are you saying that the 011 draws 8.3 A ? Yikes !

That's more than my well pump ! how many HP is that motor ?

edit: The 011 draws 1.76 A ... 211 watts ... 4.75 Hrs per KWH ... a little more than $0.03 per hour to run ... You could run the 007 at 84 watts almost three times as long for the same amount of money .

 

Woops... an extra amp not an extra killowatt. 1.75 amps vs 0.7