I am looking at adding a hot water coil to our heat pump system for supplemental/emergency heating, and would like advice on size and placement of the coil. While my installer is willing to install the coil and additional ductwork, he isn't as versed in the potential concerns of a hydronic coil (his company primarily does electric heat strips for this application).
We are in climate zone 4, with a design temperature of 5 degrees F and a Manual J heat load of just over 21,000 kBtu/hr. I have a Westinghouse 95% natural gas tankless water heater with a built-in pump (WGRGHNG150) that can be used to supply the coil – 150,000 BTU with a 10:1 turndown ratio. There would be about 60' of pex piping to run from the hot water heater to the coil and back, which I believe would put the pumped supply around 2GPM.
Currently the HVAC system is composed of:
– A 2 ton variable speed Bryant air handler (FE4ANB002000)
– A 3 ton variable heat pump (288BNV036000)
– The evolution controller (SYSTXBBECC01-A)
It’s split into four zones. The system-reported static pressure is 0.28, and the available CFM range is 300-1050. The location of the air handler means it has a very short plenum – the first takeoff is only 16” downstream of the air handler.
The options we are considering are:
1. Adding the coil in the plenum upstream of the air handler. This would mean a small coil (the plenum starts at 11”x16” and transitions to 11”x21” that would be very close to the takeoffs).
2. Adding a 20” x 20” return plenum and placing the hot water coil into there.
Option 1 is Braynt's recommended placement, but I am concerned about the already-short plenum and not getting enough delta T from the smaller coil to keep the hot water heater in condensing mode. Also, the hot water heater will run a cycle every 6 hours to prevent stagnation in the coil, which means we’d be dumping some heat in the HVAC during the cooling season. But the heat pump and hot water coil could operate in tandem.
Option 2 would mean locking down the heat pump while the hot water coil is in use (to avoid pressure issues in the heat pump exchanger). However our economic balance point is so far tilted towards natural gas that it is always the more economical option. I am thinking we'd do 4’ of return, the hot water coil, and another 4’. In each of the 4’ sections we would cut in a 20×30 filter return. For the heating season I would put a solid sheet in the close filter box, so the the draw would be across the coil, but in cooling season swap it for a prefilter, effectively bypassing the heating coil. I would probably use a full 20×20 coil, which as I understand it, would result in a lower delta T.
I’m leaning towards option 2, but would like to solicit feedback before I move ahead.
We are in climate zone 4, with a design temperature of 5 degrees F and a Manual J heat load of just over 21,000 kBtu/hr. I have a Westinghouse 95% natural gas tankless water heater with a built-in pump (WGRGHNG150) that can be used to supply the coil – 150,000 BTU with a 10:1 turndown ratio. There would be about 60' of pex piping to run from the hot water heater to the coil and back, which I believe would put the pumped supply around 2GPM.
Currently the HVAC system is composed of:
– A 2 ton variable speed Bryant air handler (FE4ANB002000)
– A 3 ton variable heat pump (288BNV036000)
– The evolution controller (SYSTXBBECC01-A)
It’s split into four zones. The system-reported static pressure is 0.28, and the available CFM range is 300-1050. The location of the air handler means it has a very short plenum – the first takeoff is only 16” downstream of the air handler.
The options we are considering are:
1. Adding the coil in the plenum upstream of the air handler. This would mean a small coil (the plenum starts at 11”x16” and transitions to 11”x21” that would be very close to the takeoffs).
2. Adding a 20” x 20” return plenum and placing the hot water coil into there.
Option 1 is Braynt's recommended placement, but I am concerned about the already-short plenum and not getting enough delta T from the smaller coil to keep the hot water heater in condensing mode. Also, the hot water heater will run a cycle every 6 hours to prevent stagnation in the coil, which means we’d be dumping some heat in the HVAC during the cooling season. But the heat pump and hot water coil could operate in tandem.
Option 2 would mean locking down the heat pump while the hot water coil is in use (to avoid pressure issues in the heat pump exchanger). However our economic balance point is so far tilted towards natural gas that it is always the more economical option. I am thinking we'd do 4’ of return, the hot water coil, and another 4’. In each of the 4’ sections we would cut in a 20×30 filter return. For the heating season I would put a solid sheet in the close filter box, so the the draw would be across the coil, but in cooling season swap it for a prefilter, effectively bypassing the heating coil. I would probably use a full 20×20 coil, which as I understand it, would result in a lower delta T.
I’m leaning towards option 2, but would like to solicit feedback before I move ahead.
source https://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?2223756-Hot-water-coil-placement&goto=newpost
No comments:
Post a Comment