208VAC issue
- Thread starter myhvacguy
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mbrooke
Batteries Included
- Location
- United States
- Occupation
- Technician
But did you know that a household water heater can be used for space heating?
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
Yes, years ago they had the “Apollo” heating system. My Hvac buddy said “you get a lot of hot water, and that’s about it” apparently they didn’t work that well.
mbrooke
Batteries Included
- Location
- United States
- Occupation
- Technician
Never heard of Apollo.
Oh yeah, the hydro heat...
i think this was a 90s failure story.
kind of like the aluminum wiring.
it was thought of as a good idea, but wasn’t...
mbrooke
Batteries Included
- Location
- United States
- Occupation
- Technician
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
Yes I have seen that done before, don't think it went to 180F + though. Not with factory thermostats anyway. A real hydronic boiler system 180 degrees is the low end of operation, and those boilers are built to higher ASME standards because they operate at higher temperature and pressure than a typical domestic water heater does.
mbrooke
Batteries Included
- Location
- United States
- Occupation
- Technician
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
Y
Yeah, it was in the 90’s, my neighbor had one.
ptonsparky
Tom
- Occupation
- EC - retired
My BIL tried the residential water heater and piping for in floor heat in his hog confinement. He couldn’t keep the floor warm on hot summer days. Wasted effort.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
Only time I seen it done with a residential water heater was for a single smaller room application. Don't know how well it actually worked.
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
My neighbor had central heating and air, an attempt to heat the whole house. Mild climate though, but several days a year below freezing.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
I had house with hydronic baseboard heat it worked fine. The boiler operated at 180 deg F though, was gas and much more BTU input than you would get out of a 4500 watt water heater.
If you have radiant in floor design, and wait until it is pretty cold to turn the system on, it takes a long time to get the floor warmed up, but once it is warm you can go for days if the system would break down and it doesn't get all that cold during that time. In shops that have in floor heat that boiler might run for days after a cold start before it reaches the user thermostat set point. But may be days before it calls for heat again.
Ravenvalor
Senior Member
- Location
- Piedmont region of NC
It seems the best solution would be for the breaker manufacturers to make a main breaker that inserted a different signal into each phase that could be detected by a meter. Your new digital meter would read phase A, B, C. The main breaker could even be an AFCI so there won't be any down stream AFCIs that will trip due to the misinterpretation of said signal. Of course any noise before the main breaker would surely trip the AFCI main. But it would keep us electricians busy.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
If you want to do that there is circuit tracing equipment you can connect that does send a different signal down each conductor up to how ever many conductors it is designed to trace at one time. If you run into an open circuit condition like OP apparently has, it can still mislead you if you don't understand why it does what it does in that open circuit situation.It seems the best solution would be for the breaker manufacturers to make a main breaker that inserted a different signal into each phase that could be detected by a meter. Your new digital meter would read phase A, B, C. The main breaker could even be an AFCI so there won't be any down stream AFCIs that will trip due to the misinterpretation of said signal. Of course any noise before the main breaker would surely trip the AFCI main. But it would keep us electricians busy.
ptonsparky
Tom
- Occupation
- EC - retired
Floor heat works well if it is designed and installed properly but if you need 300,000 BTU of heat, 15000 isn't going to work no mater how you apply it. That was the problem.
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
This was basically a standard air handler with a coil inside just like the a/c coil. Forced air over the coil. Just a bigger water heater than standard at the time.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
If it was still a 4500 watt water heater all the bigger tank does is give you more reserve when you first start using it, once you used up that reserve you only get 4500 watts of heat out of it, less any losses in the lines if they are not in the space being heated.
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
It was gas.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
Then you have higher BTU, but probably not as high as one designed for use as a true boiler.
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