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re: thermosyphoning freeze protection
17 jul 2003
daestrom wrote:
>> most of that heat (98%) is needed to warm the cold water that comes out
>> of the tank. without that requirement, g = 3 btu/h-f, eg 10' of bare pipe
>> and 0.5 gpm of flow. is there a way to add some sort of bypass pipe
>> between the supply and return pipes to complete the loop at the bottom
>> and avoid having to heat the cold tank water?
the bypass pipe might connect the collector supply and return lines just
above the tank in the basement, with your hanging check valve that only
allows flow from return to supply when the pump is running but allows slow
flow in either direction when the pump is off. to collect more house heat,
the supply and return lines might both be bare inside the house.
steve baer says thermosyphoning systems with thermally-equal legs are more
reliable than those with one biased leg, since they can easily flow in either
direction. a designer who decides to help water flow from a to b may design
a stuck system, if it wants to flow from b to a.
nick
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