Hi,
I am new here and this is my first post.
Was up till 2:30 this morning reading all I could and am so impressed at the level of advice and knowledge on this website.
My home, located on Cape Cod Ma, is an old Sea Captains house built in 1860 of around 3000+ sq/ft. It was retrofitted at some point before I bought it 22 years ago with baseboard fin tube raidiators. The downstairs is divided into 3 zones and the upstairs is one zone for a total of 4 zones. 10 years ago we had cellouious blown in insulation done. It was a poor job as I have found many gaps over the years during remodeling.
To the issues. I replaced my 20+ year old W/M VHE gas boiler with a Alpine 150 this last Spring. I also had installed by the same plumber a new superstor 45 gal water heater. All seemed fine till we got into the colder months of the Fall and this Winter. The kitchen in particular on days of 30 and below I could not get above 68-69 deg many mornings. The raidiators seemed sometimes hot, but most of the time luke warm to almost nothing. This all while the tstat was calling for heat. The boiler would fire and come up to temp then shut down. This naturally went through the long startup process thus keeping the average water temp low. The installer which I called over didn't have a clue as to why it was shutting down with one or more zones calling for heat. I read the manual and did spent a good deal of time in the basement watching the boiler run. It didn't take long to realize what was going on.
The default "Central heat diff above" is only 2deg. It was always overshooting and thus shutting down. I upped this to the max of 10deg and that was much better. It didn't short cycle as much. I did read in the suppliment to the owners manual that the new rec setting is 5 deg. I insisted the installer contact the factory rep for our area and ask him to come over and look at the installation. I realized after asking the installer if he had tweeked any of the settings and he replied "Na I just leave them at the factory settings, he didn't have a clue. The factory rep came over with my installer, but didn't seem to offer any suggestions. He lowered thew central heat mod from 5000 to 4900 but that was all.
I would like to tweak this system to get the best effiency I can and have no quams calling an engineer over to elaluate the setup and settings but not sure there is one here on the Cape.
From what I have read I am way over boilered. I have Taco pumps on each zone which most likely flow way to many GPM.
The manual calls for 160-190deg water for the baseboard I have. From what I have read isn't 140 more in the range for best effiency?
Thank you in advance for any suggestions and advice,
Tom
I am new here and this is my first post.
Was up till 2:30 this morning reading all I could and am so impressed at the level of advice and knowledge on this website.
My home, located on Cape Cod Ma, is an old Sea Captains house built in 1860 of around 3000+ sq/ft. It was retrofitted at some point before I bought it 22 years ago with baseboard fin tube raidiators. The downstairs is divided into 3 zones and the upstairs is one zone for a total of 4 zones. 10 years ago we had cellouious blown in insulation done. It was a poor job as I have found many gaps over the years during remodeling.
To the issues. I replaced my 20+ year old W/M VHE gas boiler with a Alpine 150 this last Spring. I also had installed by the same plumber a new superstor 45 gal water heater. All seemed fine till we got into the colder months of the Fall and this Winter. The kitchen in particular on days of 30 and below I could not get above 68-69 deg many mornings. The raidiators seemed sometimes hot, but most of the time luke warm to almost nothing. This all while the tstat was calling for heat. The boiler would fire and come up to temp then shut down. This naturally went through the long startup process thus keeping the average water temp low. The installer which I called over didn't have a clue as to why it was shutting down with one or more zones calling for heat. I read the manual and did spent a good deal of time in the basement watching the boiler run. It didn't take long to realize what was going on.
The default "Central heat diff above" is only 2deg. It was always overshooting and thus shutting down. I upped this to the max of 10deg and that was much better. It didn't short cycle as much. I did read in the suppliment to the owners manual that the new rec setting is 5 deg. I insisted the installer contact the factory rep for our area and ask him to come over and look at the installation. I realized after asking the installer if he had tweeked any of the settings and he replied "Na I just leave them at the factory settings, he didn't have a clue. The factory rep came over with my installer, but didn't seem to offer any suggestions. He lowered thew central heat mod from 5000 to 4900 but that was all.
I would like to tweak this system to get the best effiency I can and have no quams calling an engineer over to elaluate the setup and settings but not sure there is one here on the Cape.
From what I have read I am way over boilered. I have Taco pumps on each zone which most likely flow way to many GPM.
The manual calls for 160-190deg water for the baseboard I have. From what I have read isn't 140 more in the range for best effiency?
Thank you in advance for any suggestions and advice,
Tom