Pumps

Taco’s now-expanded ECM, wet rotor Viridian line includes the VR3452 high efficiency wet rotor variable speed circulator for chilled and hot water applications, offering up to 34 feet of shut-off head and 52 gpm flow.  All settings are accomplished with the user-friendly interface. The permanent magnet ECM motor saves up to 85% of the electrical energy compared to conventional pumps.

The circulator offers:
• Auto mode (default)
• Proportional pressure control
• Constant pressure control
• Constant speed
• Night setback turndown
• Available in 115 or 230 volts

The optional communication module provides:  Ethernet and Modbus RTU communication, analog control input 0 – 10 V, three analog inputs/outputs, one relay output, main and standby operation.

Bell & Gossett announces its 2015 third quarter Little Red Schoolhouse seminar
schedule for in-person training. The training center’s seminars provide systems design training to engineers, wholesalers and contractors in the plumbing and hydronic heating and cooling industries.

Little Red Schoolhouse Opened in 1954, the Little Red Schoolhouse offers seminars covering a wide range of topics tailored to different occupations in the industry. Our Little Red Schoolhouse, a completely equipped learning center, has trained more than 60,000 engineers, contractors and installers in the proper design, installation and maintenance
of hydronic and steam systems.

Little Red Schoolhouse third quarter schedule
• Design & Application of Water Based HVAC Systems Seminar* September 28-30
• Service & Maintenance of Water Based HVAC Systems Seminar October 5-7
• Modern Hydronic Heating Systems- Basic Seminar* October 12-14
• Modern Hydronic Heating Systems- Advanced Seminar* October 19-21
• Design & Application of Water Based HVAC Systems Seminar* November 9-11
• Large Chilled Water System Design Seminar* November 16-18
• Steam System Design & Application Seminar December 7-9

*Seminar approved by GBCI to provide credit toward the credential maintenance requirements of the LEED Associate and LEED AP certifications

Online education

Bell & Gossett’s commitment to education continues with virtual curriculum. The Online Little Red Schoolhouse training and educational programming is available to a global audience. Programming begins with introductory courses on centrifugal pump fundamentals and piping systems. These courses are intended to complement the more in-depth, hands-on experience our students get through in-person courses.

For continuing education credit information, seminar descriptions, representative information and enrollment, visit www.bellgossett.com/training-education.
To sign up for seminars via the Online Little Red Schoolhouse, visit: http://training.bellgossett.com/.

When Eric and John asked me to write a blog post on “Hydronics 101,” I have to admit I was a bit overwhelmed. Where on earth do you start? There’s boiler piping, pipe sizing, circulator selection, heat emitter selection, controls wiring, and so on.

There are so many avenues to take when it comes to “Hydronics 101” that choosing a starting point becomes quite a daunting task.

But then I thought of one of the very first training classes I ever did.

It was 1995 during a full-day program on radiant floor heating. We were going through the process of radiant design — figuring out installation method, tube spacing and water temperature. We were looking over charts and graphs to make heads or tails out of this radiant job when a fellow in the back of the room raised his hand.

“Don’t you have computer software that figures all this stuff out?”

Yep, we do.

“Then why are you wasting our time telling us all this? Just give us the software and we can go home.”

Ummm, it doesn’t quite work that way.

Design software, whether it’s for hydronics or forced air, is really nothing more than a fancy calculator. It does the arithmetic for you, and that’s about it. It doesn’t think for you, it doesn’t make decisions for you and it doesn’t tell you if you’ve input the wrong data.

It’s a calculator.

That’s it.

I like to ask folks in my classes how many of them have been formally trained in how to perform heat loss calculations. We call it “doing the math.”

As the years have gone by, fewer and fewer people raise their hands. No one’s teaching heat loss anymore, and I think it’s a shame. Knowing the actual heating load of a house or of a zone is the real “starting point” for beginning hydronics or for advanced hydronics.

How can you size a boiler if you don’t know the load? You can guess, but it’s just that: a guess. You can base your load on a standard BTU-per-square-foot multiplier, but that’s not a heat loss calculation. That’s just a guess with better PR. You can even measure the radiation, multiply by whatever multiplier you care to use and call that the load. But all that tells you is how much radiation is installed.

Good to know, but it doesn’t tell you the actual load of the house.

There’s no way around it: a good old-fashioned heat loss calculation is the only way of getting anywhere close to what the actual load of the house really is. Are “by-the-book” heat loss calculations 100% accurate? Nope — there’s so much fudge built in to the calculation methods out there that it’s a wonder we’re not all diabetic. But they’re still better than guessing.

During one of Taco’s Heat Loss classes a while back, the class was presented with a set of blueprints for normal, stick-framed house. There was nothing special about this house. It wasn’t super-insulated with super-low E windows or anything. It was a basic 2200 square foot ranch, with an outdoor design temperature of 7 degrees above Zero.

I asked the group, based on their years of knowledge and experience, to come up with their best, most accurate estimate for the heating load of the house. Their responses ranged anywhere from 55,000 BTUH on the low end to 125,000 BTUH on the high end.

The class then worked through an I-B-R based heat-loss analysis using the H-22 Heat Loss Design Guide (find it on Amazon under “Freaking Awesome Heat Loss Book!”). Using charts, graphs and real live, honest-to-goodness math, the class calculated the heat loss of that house to be a whopping 31,000 BTUH.

Well ain’t that a kick in the head!

Bottom line gang: any fundamentally sound hydronics system starts with the math. Heat load allows us to size our boiler and all of our piping as accurately as possible, which can have a major impact on materials costs. And only when we know the heating load and the size and length of the pipe that heat has to go through can we figure out what we need for a circulator, because load determines flow and pipe size and length determine head loss.

And weather impacts it all.

From there we can look at all the different types of circulators (steep curve, flat curve, single-speed, 3-speed, variable speed, Delta-T, Delta-P) and try to determine which one best fits the job we’re looking at – and no, there’s NO SUCH THING as “the only circulator you’ll ever need.” That’s a load of hogwash.

So where does “Hydronics 101” start? It must start with an accurate idea of what you’re trying to accomplish, which is to make sure this structure heats on what’s commonly referred to as “the coldest day of the year.” Now, if you’re simply replacing a dead circulator, there’s precious little math that needs to be done (but you still have to know about circulators and their impact on systems – that’s a future segment). But if you’re replacing a boiler or actually starting from scratch, the only right way to start is with a pad of paper, a scaled ruler, a pencil and a calculator. If John and Eric invite me back, we’ll walk through simple heat loss calculations done the old fashioned way. Software will do it quicker, but in order for software to be a tool and not a convenience item, it’s important to know why it came up with the numbers that it did.

As my old man used to say, “Knowing how is good, but know why is better. Because those who know ‘how’ will always work for those who know ‘why.’”

John Barba is training manager for Taco Inc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-oEEpWgeNY