Triangle Tube or Burnham Alpine?


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Old 10-02-10, 08:17 AM
G
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Triangle Tube or Burnham Alpine?

I work in the commercial HVAC industry. We perform mechanical HVAC service and installations, but for large commercial buildings (hospitals/large office buildings, etc). We don't get involved in the small stuff. Well, now I'm looking for a new boiler for a house I recently bought and have no history on. The system in this house resembles a commercial system and I have removed an 80% cast iron boiler (95K IBR) due to a broken cast iron section. I could fix it but now seems like a perfect time to repl.

There is radiant in-floor heat throughout the house which I assume is the first stage of heat, then a 5 ton fan coil unit with hot water reheat (and A/C), then 40G indirect domestic HW tank. An Erie Boiler Boss simple DDC boiler controller controlled the boiler previously and an Erie Zonetrak controller managed the individual zones and pumps. One large room has a glass curtain wall (low-e commercial glass) some 30 feet across and 18 feet tall! Great view, but will be the main energy hog in this house. The rest may not be too bad as it contains spray foam insulation. There is a main circulator pump in a primary/secondary arangement, and a pump for the slab radiant, another for the DHW and one for the AHU reheat coil. It's a pretty neat little system. I have narrowed my search down to the Triangle Tube (110 or 175) or the Burnham Alpine (105 or 150) pending heat load calcs this weekend. These are both high efficiency condensing hot water boilers. They use different types of heat exchanger technologies. I can buy both locally from suppliers I typically work with (at a decent price). I will install myself.

I am going to perform heat load calcs this weekend, but between the two boilers I've listed, what are your thoughts? I spoke to one outfit that installs a lot of residential and they had great things to say about the TT. They did not have any experience with the Burnham Alpine to say one way or another. My supplier that sells the Burnhams says they've had great luck with the Alpine. The Alpine has a 5:1 turndown and many of the main parts are off-the-shelf components easily obtainable, for both I guess. The TT has a 3:1 and getting parts for this will be easy as well as we deal with that supplier a lot. I like that the Alpine can be had with a concentric venting option but it comes out the back, but the water connections are on the side that would make installation easier. However, the inputs on the Burnham are only 1" (my current main piping at boiler is 1 1/4) and it looks like I might possibly have to up-size my pump, perhaps to gain greater velocity through the boiler? Conversely the TT vents out the top and since the mech room is below grade that's a hugely nice feature (Mech Rm is only 4ft deep crawl space) ...and it has 1 1/4 connections and holds more water in the heat exchanger than the Burnham. Ok, beyond all that, does anyone have any thoughts between the two boilers and possibly point out factors that I may not have thought about which might make one a better fit than the other? This is my first post here, BTW. Thanks in advance. Truely appreciate your help.

Gruni14
 

Last edited by Gruni14; 10-02-10 at 09:05 AM. Reason: Misspelling
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Old 10-02-10, 08:39 AM
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The TT Solo 110 has 1" connections, not 1.25". Don't know about the 175.

Also, a concentric vent termination kit is available for the TT - http://www.triangletube.com/document...ent-Manual.pdf
 
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Old 10-03-10, 08:05 AM
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See:

http://forum.doityourself.com/boiler...ler-ideas.html

for continuation of this thread.
 
 

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