The Boxed in Boiler

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Okay here is a good question...

I have my boiler securely mounted to the wall in the new laundry room. Everything is fine, except there is a pile of valves, controls, wires and whatnot, and this is in our laundry room. The Mrs is worried about a certain 16 month old baby getting into the arrangement of pipes and whatnot and wants it boxed in. I don't have any problem with that, but I got some options.

I am looking at a 5 foot wide bu 8 inch 3 sided plywood box sort of thing to box this thing in. I fabricated some rails at work and plan to have the thing hang off the ceiling, yet slide back out of the way on these rails suspended from the ceiling. That is so I can work on any part of it unobstructed. Do you think this is a good idea, or too complicated to do?

The next question is more important really. I have two schools of thought. The first is to build the box pretty simple, and don't leave any holes in it at all. The boiler has a fresh air inlet so it does not need air, plus if I insulate the box with a layer of 2 inch Styrofoam I can make this unit virtually noise free.

My next thought is, the boiler and controls need to breath so to speak. Maybe I should make the cover with louvers and other vents so that air circulates better in there.

Which way do you think I should go. Insulate for sound, or vent for air flow?

Boiler-450x600.jpg
 
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Insulate for sound, or vent for air flow?

Myself: Would do both. Use adjustable heat vents for the air flow.
Not knowing how big etc, would think that one would be more than enough.
:headbang:
 
How about just boxing in the lower section, the valves? You could make a shallow cabinet with fold out shelf (handy in laundry room). I'm assuming the 16 mo. old is not tall enough to reach the actual boiler. :)

What's the long yellow hose for?
 
What's the long yellow hose for?

Its a connection hose for the new propane dryer that is just out of sight of the picture.

All interesting ideas thus far. I was thinking of using wood as I like working with wood, but I got some drywall left over too, and that might be better to use in that its more fire resistant.
 
Consider this. Box in a framework similar to a closet (that is what you will be building) Hang Bi-fold Louvered doors as you will need, from time to time, to obtain full access. the doors would provide the access and the Louvers would supply the ventilation needed. With proper latches or hasp, the security would be achieved as well as hiding the mass of pipes, valves and doo-dads...

Or, at least that is the way I would approach the problem.
 
Without seeing the rest of the room, I'll assume there is space enough to box in or build closet-like walls around it. Then ventilate as Bill suggested. If you don't have adequate room for that, lock the door.
 
Yeah its an 10 by 12 room, so its pretty big. Its a laundry room too so Patty wants to fold clothes in there (the countertop is on the opposite side of the room then the boiler.) If she does that with Alyson, she wants to be able to have Alyson with her, yet not be able to get into boiler stuff. Right now its easy to do because of all the valves and stuff.
 
Yeah its an 10 by 12 room, so its pretty big. Its a laundry room too so Patty wants to fold clothes in there (the countertop is on the opposite side of the room then the boiler.) If she does that with Alyson, she wants to be able to have Alyson with her, yet not be able to get into boiler stuff. Right now its easy to do because of all the valves and stuff.


How about a storage closet for the whole wall. Couple of sets of Bi-fold Lourvered doors, one set covers the mechanicals and the others hide shelving units for laundry, supplies, seasonal storage, or Pantry. Consider broadening the solution.

There are no mistakes, just solutions to problems that didn't exist.

Kewl! I'm going with that, which proves I am always right.


Mele Kalikimaka,
 
Travis,

Did you do all that work yourself?

This is the type of stuff that I love to see.

You will love all that infloor heat.

But more to my post. What you have there is what i have in my greenhouses and shops. Learn those Taco pumps, because they will go bad but the good news is that there are repair kits. The only thing I can see in your loop that you may want to add is a couple of unions between your pressure regulator the other thing is a ball shut off on the supply side of that pressure regulator.

Joe
 
Oh yea, a couple of ball valves on each side of those pumps will also be appreciated if and when one of those pumps need servicing.

joe
 
Travis,

Did you do all that work yourself?

This is the type of stuff that I love to see.

You will love all that infloor heat.

Oh yeah I did all the work myself. I am one of those people that ask and ask, and research and research and then just go for it. You can probably tell by my soldering that I am not professional.

Right now I am trying to decide if I want to use this same powerplant to also heat the old part of my house. I could easily retrofit radiant floor heat to it, but the Rennai heater I now have is pretty efficient. I am not sure I would save that much by going that total-radiant route. Maybe 5% or so???
 
I can't imagine the boiler being very noisy. Mine is 25 years old and is extremly quite. I would build a sheling system to set in front of it, which would solve to problems. It would cover the exposed pipes and give more storage. You could put it on casters to slide out of the way when it is needed to get to the boiler. This would still allow plenty of air flow from the sides and keep wondering minds out of danger.
 
Travis,
Again, nice project. I catch up on your progress posts from time to time - looks great.
About your manifold valves / water heater, etc. - unless it's mounted to an exterior wall, there's no reason to provide through air flow. I'd either put it behind a door (i'm no fan of louvered bi-folding doors - i'd use cabinet doors or a panel door. You can secure them closed much easier, they hold up much better over time, and they'll help stop noise from the heater.) I'd probably build a pair of walls out on either side of the system and frame a door opening across the front to conceal it all. You could add depth to the closet, put heavier duty (ball bearing) hinges on the door, and mount some storage shelving to the back side of the door for cleaning supplies as well. That would give you some additional secure storage that wouldn't obstruct access to the hot water system.
OR, you could build a 3 sided box as you suggested, but it may be difficult to give it a nice finished look that would hold up well over time - unless you made it out of the T&G that you used for your ceilings???
Just a few hair-brained ideas to start off the new year.
Hope all's well,
Paul Hubbman
 
Boxed In Boiler Update

Well this is what I ultimately ended up with. Its little more than a plywood box with a few pine boards thrown in for trim and doors. Completely utilitarian I know, but it does work exceedingly well. That is because the whole unit is on rails and wheels. (Its the railroader in me).

I made the unit so that the 1 foot by 4 foot doors on the front can be opened and give me access to all the controllers and stuff. BUT, since this unit hangs from rails securely mounted to the ceiling, it can be unlatched from the wall and pulled back effortlessly for any servicing. This gives me plenty of room to work on anything on the system.

I made the rails at work, and used garage door sheaves, complete with bearings, to make the thing slide effortlessly. Its no Armour, but it does function quite well. Oh by the way, the cut out at the top of the box, is so that the unit can slide past the light.

This is what I had before...

Laundry_Room2.JPG


And this is what it looks like now...

Boiler_Box-small.JPG
 
Looks good, Travis...

On your manifold board, what are the red and blue hoses? PEX Material? Hot water lines for your floor heating(red) and cold water lines (blue)? Is the Black Box (Munchkin(?)) the water boiler?

I've been reading more on your "2lb" system. Very interesting!:thumb:
 
Yeah Greg it's a Munckin boiler. I bought the boiler and controls and had my local supply place spec everything out for me and this what I now got. I did not understand everything at first, but now that it is hooked up and working, I can see I was never steered wrong. This thing is ultra-efficient.

First off it is a Propane powered in-concrete slab radiant floor heat. The heart of the system is a very smart Munchkin Boiler, a boiler the size of a microwave, a lot less quiet then a microwave and one the hangs on the wall. Hooked to that I have Taco controls with Taco sensors, circulating pumps and zone valves.

At first I wanted to use a propane powered hot water heater to heat my addition, but as the guy said why would you want to use a 200,000 btu unit to heat your floor when you only need 30,000 btus/ Spend the money today and save money for the rest of your life. Now that made sense. Anyway the boiler system has three efficiency separate controls. The first is the intelligent boiler. Since its propane it can modulate and control the flame better than any oil fired system. Now the boiler works with the intelligent controls too. The controls have several sensors. The first being one to measure the outside air temp. Another measures the slab heat by being immersed in the concrete when we poured it. The last is the zone thermostats. Now all three work together to keep the water flowing through my floor at the lowest possible rate.

The general idea is this, my controls sense the temp outside and calculate every minute what the temp is outside and what the slab is losing heat wise. Those two things generally result in a line graph that obviously causes the slab to lose more heat as the outside temp goes down. Now my controls are preprogrammed to adjust the water running through my floor to match the heat loss. In other words right now it is 24º outside and it ideally needs only 88º degree water to keep the room temp at 65º degrees and keep the slab from losing too much heat. The idea is why use 120º water to heat the floor when only 88º is needed? The controls also have a sort of overdrive preprogrammed into them. The numbers can be adjusted but right now when the outside temp hits -10º the water going to my slab goes right up to 100º. The idea there is, it is so cold outside the slab is going to need extra hot water to keep itself from losing so much heat. It kind of bypasses the outside temp and in-slab temp controls because its just so cold out. The idea is that will only happen 15-20 days a year so the little bit of propane you would save is really not worth modulating everything. Okay so modulating, how does that work?

Well my intelligent controls tell the boiler to kick in. That temp goes up to 180º instantly. My Taco circulating pump is variable speed and takes out just enough of that hot water to reach 88º. It is pumped into a another circulating pump that first goes through some zone valves and then into my floor. What happens is my pumps push water more often through my floor, but being a lower temp it means my boiler runs a lot less. Now the only thing my thermostats and zone control valves do is allow that 88º water into my pipes for each zone if the air temp is below 65º. Pretty smart system really.

Now the last part of my system is the flow control valves of the manifolds. This is where all my radiant floor lines come into. I used expensive and German Made Watts flow control systems. They allow me to adjust the flow on each radiant pipe loop in the floor. This is important because ideally you want a 15º drop in water temp from when it goes into the floor and when it comes out. In this case I have temp gauges on each manifold. Since I know it wants 88º water going into the floor, I adjust the flow until I get 73º coming back out. Currently this is 1/3 of a gallon a minute.

So how well does this work? Well its been pretty cool here lately, between 40-20 degrees day and night respectively and the boiler hardly ever comes on. The one thing I want to do is hook up a hour meter to the burner and find out how long it runs per given day, week, etc. The other thing I have yet to do is hook up my boiler to heat my domestic hot water. I found the most efficient storage tank for hot water (it is a double tank rather than having the hot and cold spots like on a coil-heated tank. Still I did not like the price so I am still shopping for that. Still when that is hooked up the controls are smart enough to detect when domestic hot water is being used. It will automatically send the boiler to full throttle and divert ALL hot water to the storage tank so you never run out of hot water. While that happens your heated floor gets screwed, but its better because domestic hot water is more important.

That is probably way more then you wanted to know, but that is how it works. As a side note this boiler (80,000 btus) can be expanded. I can do several things, but ultimately I can replace my current Rennai heater in my old part of my house and add the radiant floor system to heat my entire house. Or when I build a garage I can use radiant floor heat to heat my garage as well. Because this boiler is so efficient I can actually do all three and heat my 2100 square foot home, and my garage with it. Pretty amazing with such a low btu producing boiler. Its just that it does not waste any btu's.
 
Now a few months ago I talked about using the heat from compost to heat my old shop. I kind of tanked that idea, but do like the idea of using the heat from compost to heat my domestic hot water...at least in the summer so I don't have to use propane to do that.

Now my controls have enough room to expand and can actually be used to control the water going through my compost pile and back to the storage tank. Ideally I need 180º water to get my domestic hot water up to 120º, and compost heat generally only gets up to 135º. Add in some system loses and I will need suplimental heat. Still using free compost heat means my storage tank only has to go from 120º to 180º instead of 47º to 180º. That will save me lots of propane.

So basically the compost heat will continue to circulate in my storage tank,heating up the water to 135º. This might be enough for light domestic hot water loads like laundry use or washing hands and stuff, but doing dishes or taking a shower means the controls will kick in the boiler and help heat up the water faster than it is being used. Once the heavy heat load is gone (the shower is done) it will send the boiler back to sleep mode and circulate the water once again through the compost heap.

I plan to compost only in the summer, that way I don't have to worry about fighting the cold temps and I can routinely recharge my compost pile with my lawn clippings and whatnot. Certainly nothing super green, but I am thinking it will help reduce some use of propane and keep something that is going to waste to good use. The worst that could happen is that I get no help in heating my domestic hot water and still get a pile of nutritious loam for my garden!!:thumb:
 
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