zone valve vs circulator pump
TurtleBoy
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
I have heard that both have advantages and disadvantages. Please help with any advice. Also, I have a Heatmaker boiler and will be adding the second floor heating system to it. We have not decided on radiant heat or baseboard. I’d like to know if I would have a problem heating the 1st floor with baseboard and the 2nd with Radiant? Would using either the zone valves or circulator pumps be advised for the radiant? Oh yeah, the Heatmaker is a tankless direct vent unit, and will be used for all hot water both domestic and heating, will this be an issue?
That about does it, thanks in advance for taking the time to check this out and provide your advice.
Turtleboy
Replies
Well, I'll bite.
You asked a lot of questions, but I'll try to answer the main one, namely zone valve vs pump. You may have to use both, if you want to zone heat for radiant. Basically, the main pump can circulate water past a tempering valve, which mixes hot water with returning water to produce the water to heat the floors. The tempering valve is adjusted to around 85 to 90 degrees. You need a recirc pump after the tempering valve to move the tempered water though the loops. You can use one for all the loops if it has the capacity, or one per loop if you want to use the pump as a sort of zone valve, or you can use one pump and several zone valves, which is what I did.
So I have 3 tempering valves, 3 major loops, 3 pumps, and 16 zone valves. Its a big house. I used a Taco 007, which has low voltage controls for the pump.
I am pretty sure you can mix radiant with baseboard, but I don't know for sure. You will probably need 2 major loops with 2 tempering valves, although maybe you don't have to temper baseboards. I would plan on 2 loops, 2 tempering valves, 2 pumps, etc..
I wouldn't mix hot domestic hot water with the water for heating. I think that may be a code violation, and in any event probably isn't healthy. Consider a heat exchanger based domestic hot water tank. Than means another major loop and at least a zone valve.
Make sense?
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Dermott