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I was raised by a Bell & Gossett rep and gobbled up the writings of the late, great Gil Carlson for a lot of years. I learned about Monoflo systems and primary-secondary pumping, the importance of the point of no pressure and system balance and early radiant heating systems with copper pipes. I learned that we call centrifugal pumps “circulators” when they’re in closed systems because that’s exactly what they do, and that they often wind up on the return side of the boiler because that’s where the water is coolest.
I learned a lot of tradition from the rep, and a lot of hydronic history. I learned how to think like an American heating guy. I was in Germany talking to an engineer once. The subject of Monoflo tees came up and I was pretty proud of what I knew. He had never seen such tees with their tight internal cones and I was explaining how we do things in America. The man listened and then got furious.
I showed him primary-secondary pumping and he shook his head and showed me these big tanks with many tappings that they use in European boiler rooms. These tanks act as wide spaces in the piping road, places where the circulators can hydraulically disconnect from each other. The principle is the same one that makes primary-secondary pumping work, but he was convinced that their way was better. It got pretty parochial at that point. I just listened and tried my best to learn. There was this house in the suburbs of Frankfurt. The heating contractor had placed a boiler and an indirect water heater in the basement. The boiler sat on top of the tank. He used two factory-fabricated units that encompassed the circulator, valving, gauges, thermometers, three-way valves, differential-pressure regulators and whatnot.
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I learned how important this was years ago when mechanical seals couldn’t take very high temperatures, and that all of this was happening at a time when the hot water industry was tinkering with high-temperature systems. This, to compete with steam.
He said that we were designing fixed and permanent pressure drops into our American systems and that meant that we had to use larger-than-required circulators. We were wasting the world’s electricity. I tried to explain that this was how the early hydronics industry competed with the one-pipe-steam folks, but he told me that we were irresponsible. He really was furious. It was a heck of a way to start a relationship.| Dan Holohan - [Intro] | [Email] | [Website] |
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