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Ask Caleffi
#35 Manifold filling, without the boredom?
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How do you fill a radiant system with the least amount of headache, in order to get the air out? Should you flush through the boiler side? What takes the least amount of time? When is a fill cart helpful? Is street pressure water enough to properly purge?
In this episode, the guys share their field experience filling manifolds. Just like toppings on a hot dog, there is no one specific way to do it that everyone will agree on. Dan and Greg go over the hows and whys for the different approaches. They mention the specifics for the various styles of Caleffi manifolds, including when to use the H-fitting on the 172 series products.
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2:05
going to your system we have ball valves
2:08
there so you can shut off and isolate
2:09
that manifold on the other end of the
2:12
manifold we have an air vent on the
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supply and return side and an auto air
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vent and we have a boiler drain yup on
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under both both sides so you have a way
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in and a way out right with garden hose
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connections so if you look at it the
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only thing connecting the top manifold
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to the bottom is the pecs between it
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right exactly pecs between it and the
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beauty of our our manifold too is you
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got isolation on both sides you can shut
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off on the 668 S1A’s you can close off
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the balancing valve side and you can
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also shut off the return side right
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right so you have a complete isolation
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of that Loop you can isolate all loops
2:52
and start with one Loop and and open
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them up one at a time right so whether
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you're filling from the boiler side I
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mean that's one way you can do it Greg
3:00
mentioned that when I filled systems a
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lot of times I use the boiler fill to
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flush them sure folds sure yeah you put
3:07
it you put it in bypass mode and let
3:09
that that fast fill feature take over
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and and do what it does right and when I
3:15
did that typically I would shut the
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return ball valve off on the manifold I
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would connect a hose to the drain on the
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return side of the manifold and then I
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would fill that manifold through the
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boiler supply side coming in and that
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would bring it into the top supply side
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manifold through the tubing back into
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the return and then out my hose that was
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connected to that drain
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and it worked well I mean it can take a
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little longer because like Greg
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mentioned you know you you know you're
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filling from the boiler side yeah so you
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have all the near boiler piping to go
3:50
through and possibly the boiler
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depending on where where things are
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situated but you gotta make it through
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all of that first then to get to the
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manifold right yeah and typically when I
4:00
did that I would you know I would open
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up all my all my circuits and I would
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just start to flow water through that
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manifold and it takes patience it does
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take time and I would have my hose open
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and I just start getting that water
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moving through it and then once I had it
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moving through the manifold I would shut
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down all of the ports on the return side
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sure except one yeah and I would Purge
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that Loop and then I would open that one
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and I would close that one and open the
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one next to it and I'd work my way
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across the manifold that's perfect yeah
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it takes time it does purging does take
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a lot of time it's a very tedious
4:35
process and no matter how you like to do
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it I mean
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I'll mention my favorite way of doing it
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yep just you have those isolation ball
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valves on the inlet and Outlet side of
4:45
the manifolds
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close them off and then I would say hook
4:51
in a garden hose right to
4:54
the return
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the return manifold on the bottom of
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that that purge valve and then either
5:02
hooking it to
5:04
the flush cart and demineralize water or
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if you have another water source a
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washer hose if you've got a
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slop sink close by that's got garden
5:14
hose connection that's a quick way to
5:16
fill it's a good resource it is I mean
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you're even a hose bib if if you yeah at
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all costs you always have a hose baby
5:23
you can grab to
5:25
right to run but you have a way of
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running water in the supply side and
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again by isolating off the loops and
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opening them up one at a time running it
5:34
until
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you see
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month of pure water coming out you're
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done getting burps of air
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close that off and move on to the next
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one and repeat that process over and
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over until it's completely purged right
5:46
so that's a great option I mean I was
5:48
filling from the system side of the
5:50
manifold and you like to isolate it and
5:52
fill from the drain valves yeah
5:55
essentially bringing water in through
5:57
one of the one of The Purge points and
6:00
then removing water from the other and
6:02
you mentioned what I like with your with
6:05
your option is that it's a great way to
6:07
hook a demineralizer up and and improve
6:10
the water quality of what you're what
6:12
you're putting into your system right
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yeah rather than pumping a whole bunch
6:16
of system water especially if you get
6:18
hard water right you know this is this
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is always a hot topic of a discussion
6:22
too is water quality yeah and you can
6:25
never have
6:26
enough good water in the system right
6:28
well exactly and then when you when you
6:31
look at it you know they're because
6:33
water takes that path of least
6:35
resistance it just takes time so that's
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why you know you mentioned you like
6:38
doing it I like doing it closing off
6:40
once all the circuits except one and
6:42
purging each one individually and then
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once you get them flushed out well and
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you put that system into operation you
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count on your air vents on the manifolds
6:50
to take over and and provide the rest of
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the purging
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right exactly
6:56
well
6:58
you always need a way of pumping water
7:01
in doing it the way I like it and say
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say you don't have a garden hose
7:05
connection but you have
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you end up you can bucket water in or
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whatever it might be but if you have
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that fill and flush cart that we build
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so many of
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that's a great Shameless plug for that
7:17
product right but that thing's nice you
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you have everything you need right there
7:22
pump hoses you can you can hook that
7:25
thing right up to a manifold fill the
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hopper you know fill the tank full of
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hopefully demineralized water or if all
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you've got is sight water then you do
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what you have to do
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fill that up and let it pump right you
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can let that run for a while and you'll
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pull that air out through that film
7:41
flush cart right and any debris that
7:44
might be stuck in in the tubing you know
7:47
if it was if it was run during
7:48
construction sand dirt someone ripped
7:50
the tape off or pulled the plugs off of
7:52
it or whatever
7:54
there's good chance there might be
7:55
debris in it so that fill and flush cart
7:58
is really handy to be able to take the
8:00
dirt and debris out of the tubing rather
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than hopefully not get it stuck in the
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manifold it sure is and then also
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um by using the pump you're raising the
8:08
velocity of the water through the tubing
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so you're going to get that air to move
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you're going to keep that air moving a
8:13
little easier than you would it would
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just uh Street pressure water sure yeah
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yep yeah you get a lot more a lot more
8:20
velocity and movement that way yeah and
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then again you remember once you put it
8:23
in service you have your your air vents
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on the manifolds that that will take
8:26
over and finish it you're not going to
8:29
get every inch of air it's so tough to
8:31
get every bit of air but the air vents
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are there to help you with that any
8:35
little bit that you missed say it gets
8:37
caught in a high Spot somewhere in a
8:39
manifold and you can't quite get it to
8:40
flush out it'll work its way out yeah it
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will
8:44
so that covers our 663 and 668 we have
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our 172 mixing manifold and I've got a
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number of questions on that as well
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that's always a
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point of curiosity for a lot of people
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because they see it and it's it's our
8:58
668 S1 manifold but then we combined a
9:01
mixing station that includes a hydraulic
9:03
separator a mixing valve and
9:07
an elbow and pump right and on that
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elbow you do have a manual Purge vent
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the pump and the pump you can either get
9:17
it with a high efficiency pump I think
9:20
it's the alpha alpha grundfos alpha pump
9:23
or the 1558 three speed two options
9:25
right and then
9:28
you have the option to either keep the
9:30
hydraulic separator or that H fitting in
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there which has a check valve in it or
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remove it and that's another question we
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get a lot of too yeah when do you leave
9:39
it and when do you remove it and it
9:40
really depends on how your systems pipe
9:42
before the manifold if you're counting
9:45
on that pump in that manifold to be the
9:47
The Zone pump or system pump as well as
9:51
the manifold pump then you're going to
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remove it exactly if you have another
9:54
Pump In Line Pumping to the mixing
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manifold then you're going to want to
9:59
leave that in yup that that age fitting
10:01
stays in to prevent the pump conflict
10:03
right but easy enough to to remove in
10:05
the field but when it comes to Flushing
10:07
and filling that that one can be a
10:09
little bit more challenging right with
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with that H fitting in even when you
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have we have isolation valves below that
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H fitting if you close them off guess
10:16
where the path of least resistance is
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now it's through that H fitting yeah it
10:20
is so and well and because it has a
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mixing valve in it the return side from
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the Y water coming back from the tubing
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is going through the mixing valve and
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also back to the return so if you have
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that H separator in there it can
10:36
go down and through that H separator and
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back up the supply side and you can run
10:41
a loop purging purging just the manifold
10:44
without the tubing so that's where you
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really need to you know work with the
10:50
valves on the manifold to isolate each
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Loop and and you know I like Greg's
10:55
method in this manifold specifically
10:57
because bringing water back in up on the
11:00
supply side pulling it out on the return
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side through the the drain ports yup
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kind of isolates your boiler feed so you
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can shut those valves off right at the
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manifold yep having a transfer pump and
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even if you don't own one of our cool
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carts having a high head pump that you
11:16
can move a lot of a lot of velocity with
11:19
with the bucket and hoses just like you
11:21
know sometimes we had do in the field oh
11:24
yeah
11:25
um yeah unfortunately I wasn't lucky
11:26
enough to have one of them now me either
11:28
a cart or a bucket or hoses it was
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always you're using whatever water's
11:32
there right so
11:34
it's it's very important to on the 172
11:38
to definitely
11:40
Purge through the drain valves it just
11:43
it works so much better I think it does
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and I think I would say with that
11:47
manifold
11:48
um it's going to take a little bit more
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patience with purging it because of that
11:52
of that mixing valve in place but
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certainly certainly easy enough to do it
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just takes a little bit more time and
11:58
patience yeah patience is key with
12:01
anything yeah anytime you're doing
12:03
hydronic work it takes more time
12:06
it absolutely does
12:08
well I think we covered that pretty well
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yeah quick little snippet but boy we've
12:11
been getting calls on that recently when
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guys are starting to fill systems and
12:15
get them ready to run this winter so I
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thought I thought maybe that would be a
12:18
good thing to jump on and talk about
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yeah hopefully it's helpful and
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eventually I think we're going to put
12:23
together a YouTube video and I don't
12:24
think I know yeah we are we are going to
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put together a YouTube video on on the
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steps to take and and purging one of
12:31
these manifolds so you'll find that on
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our ask Luffy blog yes we'll post a link
12:36
there when it comes to it all right all
12:38
right thanks guys thank you
12:41
thank you for tuning in if you ever need
12:43
help please feel free to contact our
12:46
tech support team anytime at
12:50
techsupport.uscaleffi.com or call us
12:53
during our business hours
12:55
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13:00
414-238-2360
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