starcat

I can run and Electrical circles a minimum of 7 times around this kind of talk and have the both the education, track record, and Masters License to prove it all out. I see you are likely drinking on the job again and confused about postings which you are short on knowledge and experience in. The screen name says it all.

I would look at current cost figures for Propane and Fuel oil and have the boiler set up to run both. This is easily done. " There is no certainty with respect to cost differences between propane, natural gas, and fuel oil because fossil fuel prices fluctuate minute to minute, day to day, year to year, and decade to decade. But, over the course of history, fuel oil has been — and continues to be — the less expensive of the three choices." And this is just one article on the subject of many: https://rentar.com/natural-gas-vs-fuel-oil-vs-propane-furnace-boiler-heating-debate/. You can install a good qaulity Scotch Marine Fire Tube Boiler set up to run both fuels and have your choice right on hand which give you redundancy and flexibility. The fuel oil pump drive is disconnected at the drive coupling when you are firing on propane. You still need propane or NG to run the pilot burner when fueling on oil with the old style setups I have run, and they work well.

The Problem with a LOT of these modern package type boilers or vertical units is mechanical integrity and design of internals. They can be near impossible to descale, and the same goes for repairs if major failure happens. There is nothing more rugged than the Scotch Marine style firetube boiler or modified version of this class. If they are correctly installed and run with proper blowdown, control set up, and settings, and chemical feed they will simply outlast any of these new designs which could be considered " throw away " technology in a major lot of cases. They pay for themselves this way compared to something which a Mechanic can walk up to, take one look and see trouble looming immdiately.

Chillers of the type that are used for this kind of duty generally have a Saturated Evaporator Temp. that can run definitely below 30F. Running straight water on that side of the system can be risky, and best to consult MFG. best practices. Chillers designed for climate cooling generally run with an Evap temp around 40F, and they are made to run straight water on the DX heat exchanger. I have not found any substitute for the accuracy of a Refractometer in getting then concentration in the correct range.

PG is correct and you need it with inhibitor. " Dowfrost " is a known spec, but you can get an equivalent from Chemworld that is just as good. https://www.chemworld.com/Inhibited-Propylene-Glycol-p/glacier-55.htm You need to set BRIX with a refractometer to cover below your evaporator range and outdoor temp if you are running a packaged chiller with glycol well outdoors in low ambient. 29 BRIX will get you to about -6F with fair viscosity limit. If you have a chiller in a mechanical room with remote condenser the situation is different. The glycol is strictly about Freeze Protection and you actually lose some efficiency on both heat transfer and pumping when its used, but the advantage far outweighs the added complexity of a glycol to water HX system in many cases.

You can run straight glycol, but as noted above the return temperature is beyond the design limits of the chiller. Generally you do not want anything more than 90F fluid coming back and then not for long. The continuous return fluid temp needs to be lower when the DX heat exchanger sees it. This can be overcome by: 1: removing heat from the fluid before it gets back to the chiller. 2. oversizing the chiller and the return well and running a certain amount of bypass after the condenser return TEE's into the main return line. You still then technically have an open loop because the glycol well is at atmospheric, and it does not really get contamination if your fluid is the right kind of inhibited glycol and water. This also Simplifies your setup considerably and stabilizes your condensing media temp as long as you are not undersized on capacity. Glycol is a very different animal to contain and will leak where straight water will not. This is especially the case at threaded connections and transitions between different types of material. There are strategies to deal with this.

Paul, I take the nonsense you are speaking as a " Compliment."

If you are an American, you should resist ALL of the Metric System with every Fiber of your being......

Here are some more resources: https://www.chromalox.com/catalog/resources/technical-information/Electrical-Wiring-Theory-Three-Phase-Equations-Wiring-Diagrams.pdf https://www.chromalox.com/catalog/resources/technical-information/Electrical-Wiring-Theory-Three-Phase-Equations-Wiring-Diagrams.pdf While I hear 600V is common in Canada, I would not be confortable with this utilization voltage except in a heavy industrial setting and with only very electrically savvy people operating said equipment. This is even the case with some 480V loads as seen in the USA. The problem being both a lack of proper training and the lack of common sense these days which makes things double dangerous at those voltages. I have worked around quite a bit of 480V systems and they are inherently more dangerous than everyday operation of 208-240V. 480 Volts is enough power to sustain an arc, and when things go wrong the fireworks and flashover are much more spectacular. 480V capacitors that are used in HVAC applications can often times hold a dangerous charge that will still be present when the line is disconnected. Those voltages are simply Industrial and need to be approached very carefully and with high respect. This is especially the case in wet environments.

With typical dual voltage motors, you do not necessarily have a choice as to how you connect the field windings and it depends primarily on the voltage you want to run. Heating elements are also designed for a specific " applied " voltage which can be AC or DC. If you power up with half the rated voltage your wattage goes down according to OHMs law equations. If you apply ove voltage to elements they will fail quickly.

Hahahaha......

This is common, but is not straightforward. When you use a drive on single phase to output 3 phase, it has to be oversized to what the rated HP, 3PH drive for that motor load would normally be. This means the electrical service has to be sized for the VFD, and the VFD has to be configured correctly for the motor connected. While not a perfect solution it can work, but I much prefer not to have to do so if its not absolutely necessary. There is a lot of proprietary gear that is set up this way from the factory, including many washing machine drive motors these days.

This is a tough one. Hanna is an Asian Instrument maker that produces mostly low quality Lab gear. Their Tech Support is NON-EXISTENT, and I have gotten Buffer Calibration Solutions that were mispackaged and mislabeled. As an example I have a full box of PH 7 Solution Sachets that are PH 10 without any doubt whatsoever. If you instrument fails, good luck on speaking to anyone that cares to assist you in getting the matter sorted out. In Water Treatment we used Lab gear made by Hach which was decent Industrial quality stuff. A better Boiler Test meter by far is made by Myron. I am sure there are other choices but as for this brand I advise you try to avoid them.

Inhibited Sulfamic acid is one of the very best for this application when dealing with carbonates and silicates from hard water. I have found it to be Superior in performance to many, For SS you can also use 5 Star Acid 5 or 6.

You have too much pump for what you are doing apparently. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I would change the pump, the impeller size, or put on a VFD. Lauter pumps are generally 1750 not 3450 RPM in my experience depending on total design criteria. There are " Limits " to applying drives to solve equipment mismtach matters. Too many starts per hour is " hard " on any electric motor, especially single phase.