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Posted by HeatPro on February 05, 2006 at 13:31:27:
In Reply to: Re: wiring boiler/ergomax in my situation posted by David on February 05, 2006 at 07:33:04:
: If I were able to persuade him, would the balancing valve go on the 1.5" manifold pipe to supply header? Is that balancing valve the same thing as a "circuitsetter" valve? Return wouldn't need it as supplies have checkvalves...right?
+++ I'm not sure if there was a serious problem from having heat drift up in the piping. The pipes go up to unit heaters and radiant flooring and a smaller flow to them while the pumps were off during the heating system would have been more of a benefit to them than a problem.
The problem has always been in your installation of trying to use large commercial configuration in what is to hydronics a small home. As you have chosen the Humvee approach to a Chevy situation, the game should be played out. Commercial installations use circuit-setters to 'tune' the flows in each of the circuits to what is needed. A 3/4 balancing valve is a less expensive version of a 'circuit-setter.' Actually, what is done is to increase the resistance to flow for each circulator so it gives a 50F or less temperature drop across the circuit. Each Taco 007 in your house can handle half the flow needed for the home - you have 5 circs, so they need to be 'tuned back' to give just the flow needed. That was the problem with having water flow up there, not enough resistance to flow against the 0010. In short, the job was repiped before it was adjusted.
Problematically, it was repiped to a commercial concept of the 'equal-balance' manifold idea that created the problem of how to get the boiler pumps and the circuit pumps on at the same time. A quick and dirty fix is to wire the pump to run constantly; which wouldn't be all that expensive and would help the pump last longer. As originally stated a year ago, you only needed the Taco 0010 to heat the house with zone valves. We are using work-arounds to keep 5 'decorative' 007's active.
Your problem was that water was rising from 0010 pump action; the quick fix was to swap supply and return manifold piping so the system return was at the tank top and the system supply manifold came from the bottom. The 0010 would then have been pumping against the check flow control valves on each of the circuits and the 0010 could not pump water against them. That is actually the purpose of the flow control valves.
I have a suspicion about how the ErgoMax was piped to create this resistance to flow that forced water upstairs; but that is another chapter for now.