Looking for a thermostat for floor heater

[slash007]

My floor heater in one wash is currently setup where I have to manually turn it on. First a switch for the pump and then another for the heater itself. Needless to say it it a PITA and I barely use it. I want to hook it up to a thermostat so that it comes on automatically but can't seem to find one. I don't see any on KleeRite but maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. I just need the simple thermostat with a temp dial and a probe. If someone could direct me to the best place to buy one, I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

 

[tdlconceptsllc]

Yes sir I could sell you one or go to your local C.C. Dickson Company store they sell refrigeration controls heating cooling all you need is a Johnson control Thermostat for a walk in cooler style have several of them and one on my floor heat works very well and a long time. 120volts just check what voltage you have before riding to the parts store. Also you could buy something to what i am talking about from Grainger part#2E834. I have had this style for years on my floor heat but always have bought the Johnson Control brand. Try your local HVAC parts house they will also have all your boiler parts pressure switches, Ignition models, ect..

 

[Jimmy Buffett]

I bought mine at Brock-Mcvey in Lexington.

 

[soapy]

I use several Johnson control thermostats for my boilers. I use model A-419. I take a 1/2 inch hard plastic tube and imbed it into the concrete. The tube should extend out at least 12 inches from the edge of the building in a area that sees the least amount of sunshine. I use 1/2 inch hard plastic tube because the temp. probe will slide down inside of it and can be replaced if it goes bad. You can cut a channel into existing concrete and lay the plastic pipe in the channel and then concrete back over the pipe. I get mine from Johnstone supply.

 

[slash007]

I thought of Brock-Mcvey a while back but for some reason completely forgot about them. I was next them them twice today too! I also have a Johnstone supply down the street, so I will check them out as well.

I never thought about the concrete idea, it's probably better then where I have mine now. I'll probably give it a shot for these. Are the Johnson models mostly about the same, or is there any difference that I should pay attention to?

 

[tdlconceptsllc]

Johnstone has a lot

 

[2Biz]

I use the secondary output on my Weepmizer and a relay to power the floor heat circulation pumps which then activates the On Demand Boiler. I do have some "Inline" switches that I can use to Micro Manage the system. There are many nights where the temps drop below freezing but the slab stays above freezing and the floor heat is not needed. Putting in a Slab T-Stat wouldn't work for me.

 

[JIMT]

The thermostat tube in the slab at our car wash failed and we could not get the new thermostat bulb in. We just taped the bulb to the floor heat copper return pipe and wrapped some insulation around it. The temperature of the return pipe is close to the floor slab.

JIMT

 

[2Biz]

To add: The weepmizer basically turns on the loop circulation pump @ 36°. I have an inline T-Stat that monitors the floor coolant return temps. Once the return temps reach about 40°, it fires the circulating pumps to the Demand Heater. My loop circulator only uses 2amps of 120v current. So it only consumes pennies a day. I devoted a thread to the installation if you're interested. Lots of Pics...

http://www.autocareforum.com/showth...s-Water-Heater-For-Floor-Heat&highlight=floor

 

[slash007]

To add: The weepmizer basically turns on the loop circulation pump @ 36°. I have an inline T-Stat that monitors the floor coolant return temps. Once the return temps reach about 40°, it fires the circulating pumps to the Demand Heater. My loop circulator only uses 2amps of 120v current. So it only consumes pennies a day. I devoted a thread to the installation if you're interested. Lots of Pics...

http://www.autocareforum.com/showth...s-Water-Heater-For-Floor-Heat&highlight=floor

I never thought of using the weepmiser as one of the thermostats. Should I just hook a wire to the b output and let it control it? Seems simple enough.

 

[2Biz]

My output (2) controls a relay that handles the load of the floor loop circulating pump. From there an aquastat controls the firing of the boiler. In my case with using a demand heater, the aquastat controls the pumps feeding the demand heater which in turn fires the demand heater...Yes, it is that simple. I do have (2) light switches between the relays and my pumps, (1) for the circulating pump and (1) for the demand heater pumps. Makes it easy to turn the system off when I don't want it to run below 36°. The only thing I wished were different is, that the secondary output of the weepmizer had a different programmable setpoint than the weep side of the system. But it doesn't. Output 1 & 2 work off the same setpoint. It would have been nice to have that flexibility.

 

[slash007]

I installed two thermostats to control my floor heat, one for the circ pump and another for the boiler. Last night they came on as I intended and all seemed well, but today I noticed that the temp readings are way off. It is 27 degrees outside one one is reading around 45 and the other a little higher. It is sunny, but I installed the sensors in pvc pipe about 1' from the building. Did I do it wrong? The pic with the two pipes is for my boiler, the other pic is where my weepmizer sensor is housed under the metal sleeve and that temp is pretty accurate. View attachment 528 View attachment 529

 

[wash4me]

You can't put them in the sunlight like that. They would be better off in the first bay off the equipment room.

 

[slash007]

You can't put them in the sunlight like that. They would be better off in the first bay off the equipment room.

I wondered if the sunlight would affect them, but figured that the pvc surround the probe all around except for the top. I might have enough room to put them in the nearest bay.

 

[2Biz]

I wondered if the sunlight would affect them, but figured that the pvc surround the probe all around except for the top. I might have enough room to put them in the nearest bay.

Actually you'd be better off starting the system off the secondary output of your weepmizer like I suggested if your using outside air temperature to activate your system. You'll need to install a relay to handle the load since The weepmizer is only good for 3 amps I believe. A relay will use about 6-10 watts. I have the secondary output of my weepmizer set to come on at 32°. Then you can use an aquastat off the return line to control boiler firing. Some even tape the sensor right to the return line, no need to put in a tee and well for the sensor.

Once activated from the weepmizer, The zone pump would run continuously until the temp goes above 32°. Then the whole system would shut down. This would be way more accurate than mounting the sensors on the building.

If you need help with this, I can send you close ups of what I did. It works great.

 

[slash007]

Actually you'd be better off starting the system off the secondary output of your weepmizer like I suggested if your using outside air temperature to activate your system. You'll need to install a relay to handle the load since The weepmizer is only good for 3 amps I believe. A relay will use about 6-10 watts. I have the secondary output of my weepmizer set to come on at 32°. Then you can use an aquastat off the return line to control boiler firing. Some even tape the sensor right to the return line, no need to put in a tee and well for the sensor.

Once activated from the weepmizer, The zone pump would run continuously until the temp goes above 32°. Then the whole system would shut down. This would be way more accurate than mounting the sensors on the building.

If you need help with this, I can send you close ups of what I did. It works great.

Close ups would be much appreciated. At what temp do you have your boiler set to fire?

 

[2Biz]

Check out post #27 in this thread I started a year ago when I installed my new Takagi floor heat boiler. There are some closeups and detailed pics in that post.

http://www.autocareforum.com/showthread.php?9409-Tankless-Water-Heater-For-Floor-Heat/page3

In the background you can see the weepmizer... The boiler, then the control panel. You'll have to know what voltage input/output you are running through the weepmizer? 24v or 120v....This will determine the coil voltage you need for your relay. You'll see the relays in the control box. I reused the box from my old floor heat boiler. The bottom relay (30a) controls the (3) pumps. (1) zone circulator and (2) boiler pumps. The top relay turns on the trough heat tape. It is on a seperate circuit but is energized by the bottom relay. This seperates the load between two different circuit breakers. Relays are great little devices!

The secondary set point on the weepmizer is set to come on @ 32°. So when the bottom relay energizes from the weepmizer, it turns on all three circulators and the trough heat. Looking at the 4th picture, you can see the whole setup. The aquastat is on the return line. You can see it better in pic 3. It controls the boiler pumps on and off at setpoint and differential. Once the system reaches temperature, I have the Aquastat set to turn on the boiler pumps @ 60° then back off at 70°. 10° differential. The boiler runs about 15 minutes on 15 minutes off with this differential. The zone pump runs continiously until the weepmizer temp rises above 32°. Above 32° the whole system shuts down.

So you can do about the same thing as what I did. Without seeing your system, its hard for me to tell you what to put where. The main thing is you want to activate the whole system by the weepmizer output two using a relay. The control your boiler with an aquastat off the return line from your zones.You want the aquastat set so your boiler does not short cycle.

If you have time to read, there is a lot of detail in the thread I linked to. If you have any specific questions, let me know.

I went ahead and posted the pics in this post for easier reference. Go to the thread linked to for more reference...

 

[2Biz]

BTW..You'll see 4 gages in the piping. One monitors return temps from the zones next to the aquastat, the one by the two pumps compare boiler output temps with the digital readout on the boiler, the one next in line next to the expansion tank monitors system pressure, and the 4th one in line monitors temps going back out to the bays. These 4 gages allows you to monitor and tweak every aspect of this system. No guessing. It didn't take too long to figure out just how low I could set things so the bays stay above freezing. Even my outside truck/semi bay...You can see how the ball valve handles are set on the different zones. The truck bay farthest away gets the most. In this picture I have the trough heat zone turned full on (zone furthest to the right)...The trough heat zone looses the least heat of any of the zones. So full on doesn't affect the system much.

 

[2Biz]

Ok....Just found a closeup of the control panel....The terminal strips makes it a lot easier to wire up all the different loads. Copy the picture to your PC to blow it up. You can see "Line", "Common", "Switched Load", "Boiler Pumps" and "Ground"...I have terminal strip jumpers to connect series of terminals...

 

[slash007]

Beautiful setup and excellent pics. I do appreciate you posting them. I will read through the other thread the first chance I get. Unfortunately my setup is very old and limited in what I can do with it. I will take and post some pics the next time I am there. My system is not only old, but it barely covers the bay floors. It missed the edges which is not a huge deal, but none of the surface area in the front or back of the bays is heated nor the change area, so anyone walking out of the bays has to deal with ice which I really hate. It was a big catalyst for me adding in bay cc and $ bill acceptance as I hoped to limit the people that walked out of the bay for change.