The Home Stretch, Part 1

What a relief, the final phase of this project has started. I designed the loops, sized the equipment, but I don't have enough plumbing experience to do the construction. So we were fortunate to find a very good mechanical services company, APEX, Inc right down the road in Lenhartsville,PA. who could wrap this project up.

Ted, the owner did the work, and he has 27+ years of experience, and has done numerous OWB. He really knows what he is doing and has very reasonable rates. I highly recommend APEX for anyone in the area looking for a good mechanical contractor.

After some background reading, and discussions with the tech support from GARN, I decided to pipe the GARN Heat Exchanger with and injection loop in series with the return on the existing Oil fired boiler. The pump in the injection loop is a New TACO 008-VDT, delta-T pump. These pumps are really very slick, they come with a microprocessor and two temp sensors. You just clamp the temp sensors to the supply and return lines on the injection loop. You then select your system delta-T between supply and return, and you are done. The micro will then vary the pump speed to maintain the temperature differential. As the load demand changes, the speed will change to meet that demand.

Today, APEX did all the work in the basement, which is shown in the diagram above. 16 man hours later the house portion of the project was done. The existing boiler was cracked open, drained, the injection loop was plumbed in the existing boiler return. Also the HX was piped on both sides. We also piped a GARN Fill into the GARN return side of the HX, and the ability to isolate/flush the HX in the off Season. A manual boiler/pump switch over was also wired. I will work on a more automatic configuration once the system is up and running, and I have worked out any kinks. Now on to the GARN BARN plumbing!