|
I don’t know about you
but sometimes I get fed up with hearing about the whole
‘green’ thing. Green cars, green houses, green fuel,
green everything. What’s sad is that this is really
nothing new, it’s just recycled stuff from the 1970s with
a new buzz word to sell more of us on conservation and
energy savings. The new ‘green’ word is also to get the
Generation Xers and the Millenniums to maybe do more than us
older generations have done for planet earth.
Although I may get sick of
hearing about green, energy conservation, greening,
recycling, etc., it not only makes sense for the
environment, but also for the consumer’s wallet so it’s
here to stay again, well at least for a year or two! I’m
going to focus on what’s new again and see Green
Everything! by George Lanthier if this makes sense to you.
To try to accomplish an efficient or ‘green’ home the
best and still biggest bang for the buck is insulation.
I’ve tried it all, new equipment, setbacks of every kind,
zoning, you name it, and insulation still works the best!
When sizing a new home
heating appliance, furnace or boiler, or a replacement, the
key is a good heat loss/ gain calculation. When figuring
retrofit equipment make sure to ask lots of questions,
people have tightened their homes, a lot! The best data into
a heat loss program leads to the best heat loss/gain and a
provable number that just may put you ahead of the
competition when competing on price. Then, size your
equipment to no more than 125% of the heat loss obtained and
you are green. It’s a lot better than sizing by the rating
plate or any other stupid nonscientific method because
calculations work and math doesn’t lie. We’ll come back
to this later in steam, but if you want to take a heat
loss/gain course get in touch with us. We have them in our
schedule at http://www.firedragonent. com/FDSchedule.htm and
we talk about steam systems too!
Story
continues below ↓
advertisement
| your ad here
|
FIGURE
1 FIGURE
2 FIGURE
3 FIGURE 4
First things first. Clock
or setback thermostats work, Figure 1, but even if they didn’t
the basic element of energy conservation is to try and stop
the thermostat from firing the burner, oil, gas, whatever.
In addition, many will tell you they don’t work with
steam, radiant, etc. and that’s just not true! They work
with any type of system and any type of fuel; it’s
percentage of setback that matters, it’s that simple and
we’ll cover that in another article soon. When it comes to
warm air, the biggest culprits here to not being green are
dirty fans, ducts and filters. If all of these are kept
clean and all of the accessories, (air cleaners, and
humidifiers) are there and are working properly there’s
not much more you can do. Warm air is simple, and although
many wetheads don’t like to hear this, warm air is the
true 600 pound gorilla of heating in the USA due to the
immediate and inexpensive ability to air condition, but it
won’t work right with dirty filters and fans that look
like Figure 2.
Steam is a bit more complex
than air systems, but still simple. The biggest thing when
replacing a steam boiler is to ask about missing or removed
radiators and again what’s been done to the house for
insulation. Although you still must do a good, accurate EDR
(Equivalent Direct Radiation) survey i t ’s nice to know
what you’re up against. Consider building into your steam
boiler estimate not only the essential and possible addition
of main vents, but also replacing every vent on the job.
Vents are the indispensable control in a one-pipe steam
system and will improve comfort, reduce fuel usage and help
the greening process. All of my jobs included new vents and
I still hear from my customers how happy they are 20 years
later. Dump the conventional and often inaccurate
pressuretrols ® and only use 16 ounce vaporstats®. Keep
the pressure under one psi with a wide differential (12
ounces), use a good probe type low water cutoff and that’s
it for steam controls.
Check the water pH level of
your boiler. Make sure it’s clean after about a month of
hard winter-like operation. The pH should be between 7 and
11 for most steam systems and you can find a great pH
tester, Figure 3, on my website. Good, clean water is
essential to making good steam. A great steam install versus
an average install is to put a flush valve in place of the
skim valve. When your skimming is done put a small length of
scrap hose on the boiler drain and on the low-water cutoff
flush valve. Make sure both of these are ball valve types,
Figure 4. Show your customer how to use them and try to
emphasize the importance of flushing both valves every week.
I use to find telling them they will save money worked best.
That’s it for steam, down and dirty and no rocket science
involved.
Finally, hydronics or water
systems. Although steam can be zoned at each radiator, and
you can zone warm air just like water, floor by floor and
room by room, most of us in wet heat love our water systems.
We don’t know why and it just may be that we prefer, like
plumbers, to burn our fingers instead of cutting them. There’s
really not much for me to say about greening a water system
that hasn’t been beaten to death by others, so do a little
reading, offer your customers lot’s of options and look
into the indoor, boiler and outdoor reset options. Today
there’s more reset options than ever and you have to find
the best solution by 2012 when the Federal law cuts in. See
ya. ?
*George Lanthier is the
owner of Firedragon Enterprises, a teaching, publishing and
consulting firm. He is an industry trainer and the author of
over 25 books on oilheating and HVAC subjects. He can be
reached at 608 Moose Hill Road, Leicester, MA 01524. His
phone is 508-421-3490, fax at 508-421-3477 and his web-site
and chat room can be found at www.FiredragonEnt. com
###
|
