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Hydronic Heating System

Design
Jay designed the hydronic heating system following the principles in the
book Modern Hydronic Heating For Residential and Light Commercial
Buildings. The design of this system is relatively straightforward, and similar
to that of many in-floor heating systems with supplemental solar heat. It is sized
smaller than would be typical for a house of this size because our house has
much more insulation and better windows, and thus a much smaller heating
load than a typical house. Click here to see more pictures of the system.

Plumbing
The following shows the schematic design of the hydronic plumbing, and a
photograph of the actual system.
Heat Sources
When water enters the heat exchanger shown at the top of the diagram, it first
travels through copper tubing to the bottom of the heat storage tank. From
there the copper tubing spirals upward to the top of the tank where the water is
warmest and then returns through the pipe on the right-hand side of the
diagram. It then flows through the Ecosmart Tankless Water Heater. This is
an on-demand water heater that will raise the temperature of the water to 80
degrees F. If the water is already at or above this temperature when it exits the
heat storage tank, the heater does not switch on and we heat entirely with solar
energy. We hope that will be the case most of the time, but the heater is
necessary for cold cloudy weather when we can't collect enough solar energy
to keep the tank warm. Even in those times we can keep from using electricity
for heat by using the wood stoves, so the electric heater is there just as a
backup and to meet building code requirements. Our heater provides only 6400
watts, which is about 22,000 BTU per hour. This is equivalent to the heat output
of a very small furnace, but it is sufficient to keep the house warm even in cold,
cloudy conditions because the house is so well insulated. This small heater cost
only $250 versus several thousand for a high-efficiency furnace or geothermal
heat pump, an example of how spending more money on insulation saved us
money on the heating system.

Mixing Valve
The Mixing Valve is used to prevent extremely hot water from entering the
floors when the heat storage tank is hot. We want to supply water to the floors
at about 80 degrees F, but if the storage tank is at its maximum of 140 degrees
then the water returning from the heat exchanger could be much too hot. This
valve automatically adjusts the mix of hot water and cool return water that
enters the pumps, to provide a relatively constant supply temperature that can
be adjusted by turning the knob atop the valve. We can adjust the valve to the
desired temperature using the temperature gage installed between the valve
and the pumps.

Pumps
The two Recirculator Pumps run on 120 volts A.C. and consume 60 to 90
watts each depending on their speed setting (each pump has a 3-speed
selector switch). Each pump is controlled by a thermostat, with one thermostat
in the cottage and another in the main house, but typical home thermostats are
designed to switch only 24 volts A.C. at low current so they can't control the
pumps directly. The green box is aSwitching Relay that enables the
thermostats to control the pumps. Each pump has a built-in check valve that
prevents water from flowing backwards through it when it is off. This is essential
so that when only one zone calls for heat we don't get cool water flowing back
through the other pump, because it would allow some water to circulate
uselessly without passing through the rest of the system.
Manifolds
The supply and return Manifolds are designed to distribute the water flow
through the six loops of in-floor tubing. Warm water enters the supply manifolds
on the top, and cooler water returns through the manifolds on the bottom. There
are two loops for the cottage and three for the main house, plus a small loop for
the entryway that is fed from the main house manifold. We'll cut down the flow
rate on that loop in order to keep the entryway somewhat cooler than the main
house.

Air Eliminator
The Air Eliminator is a microbubble resorber, which is designed to extract
even microscopic bubbles from the water as it flows through. The air collects at
the top of the air eliminator where it activates a float valve that automatically
releases the air from the system. The Expansion Tank below it has a
diaphragm inside, and is pre-pressurized to about 12 PSI. This is similar to the
pressure tank found on most domestic water wells, but much smaller with a
capacity of 2.2 gallons in this case. If we didn't have an expansion tank, even a
small change in the temperature of the water could cause a large change in the
pressure of the system. The expansion tank keeps the system pressure
relatively constant.

Pressurization
It is necessary to keep the water under pressure, because otherwise the pumps
will experience cavitation. This can happen as the pump's impeller moves
through the water and causes a pressure drop on the trailing edge of the
impeller, much like the wing of an airplane. The boiling temperature of water
gets lower as the pressure drops, and if the pressure drops enough the water
can literally boil and create tiny bubbles of water vapor along the trailing edge
of the impeller. As they move out of the low-pressure area the bubbles change
back to a liquid, and they do this so suddenly that a tiny shock wave is created.
These shock waves, although tiny, are intense enough to erode the surface of
the impeller over time. That's why cavitation is very bad, and the simple solution
is to keep the water under enough pressure to prevent the pumps from
cavitating. How much pressure depends on the temperature, and at the low 80-
degree operating temperature of our system it only requires about 2 PSI
according to the pump manufacturer. We pressurized our system to 15 PSI just
to be on the safe side. The Pressure Relief Valve next to the heater is set at
30 PSI so we have plenty of margin in case the pressure increases a bit as the
system warms up.

In-Floor Tubing
The heat tubing in our radiant floors is all 5/8" PEX (cross-linked
polyethylene) Pipe. Most systems use 1/2" diameter tubing, but going to 5/8"
enabled us to use smaller (lower wattage) pumps to get the necessary flow rate.
If the flow rate is too low, or if a given loop is too long, the water gets cold before
it reaches the end of the loop resulting in uneven heating. The larger diameter
tubing also has 25% more area over which it exchanges heat, which enabled
us to use less tubing than if we had used 1/2". Most of the tubing is spaced 16"
apart in the floors, which is much farther apart than in typical systems because
the house is designed to have a much lower heating load per square foot than
a typical house. This is another example where spending more money on
insulation saves us money on the heating system. In all we used about 2000' of
tubing for all the floors, including some for the workshop floor which will not be
heated with this system but could be used to dump surplus solar heat in the
spring and fall.

The tubing we used has an oxygen barrier, which keeps oxygen from diffusing
into the water through the plastic tube wall. This prevents cast iron components
such as the pump housings from corroding, which they would do if there were
dissolved oxygen in the water.

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