#1.6 Manual vs. Thermostatic: Which Balancing Strategy Is Right for Your Project?

Ever stayed in a hotel where you have to turn the shower on, go grab breakfast, and come back just to find "warm" water? In this episode of Ask Caleffi, the team dives deep into the "why" and "how" of domestic hot water (DHW) balancing.

Water is inherently lazy, it takes the path of least resistance. In a DHW system can mean that  the furthest risers in a building can be cold  while the closest ones hog all the heat. The crew breaks down the symptoms of an unbalanced system and compares the most popular solutions on the market today. From the old-school struggle of manual balancing valves to the modern efficiency of thermostatic balancing, we cover it all to help you save water, energy, and your sanity.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The Ball Valve Myth: Why using a ball valve for balancing is a recipe for failure.
• Manual vs. Automatic: The pros and cons of fixed-flow cartridges versus the "hand grenade" (the 132 QuickSetter).
• Thermostatic Balancing: How to "zone" your DHW system by temperature rather than just flow.
• Legionella Management: A look at thermal disinfection and how to automate it using Building Automation Systems (BAS).
• Pump Protection: Why pairing balancing valves with ECM pumps in Delta P mode is critical to prevent pipe erosion.

Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen.

Transcript

Welcome From The Lab

Speaker 2 0:01

Welcome to the Ask Caleffi podcast coming at you live from the lab.

Speaker 4 0:06

Guys, what do we got going on? Plumbing, hydronics, expert insights, and a few stories from the trenches. Whether you're on the job or just along for the ride, we've got you covered.

Speaker 2 0:22

Hey everybody, welcome back to another Ask Aleffi episode. Guys, what are we talking about today? Balancing valves. Balancing valves. Balancing in domestic hot water systems in particular. Right. But we're going to go through some options for doing that. Um and talk about like symptoms of and I I can talk plenty about systems, symptoms in systems. Uh with my travels. Yeah. Uh with my travels. I can tell you which hotels you don't want to stay in if you like hot water on the fifth floor where you're staying. Man, uh I it's unbelievable how much water gets wasted just waiting for hot water to get places.

Speaker 1:06

That hotel room where you turn the water on and then go for breakfast and then come back to a warm shower. Seriously.

Speaker 2 1:12

Um it and it also helps too, you know, not that it's related if they actually installed the shower cartridge in the right way. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Um but I digress. You know, it was it was North Carolina, so say no more. Rough. Anyway. Um but yeah, we're gonna go through we're gonna go through some things with domestic hot water systems. Um but I think we kind of gave a why, right? It's to s help save on water consumption.

Speaker 3 1:44

Yeah, yeah, save on water and even comfort.

Speaker 2 1:47

Yeah, right.

Speaker 3 1:48

You know, it's nice turning on the faucet and having hot water right away.

Speaker 5 1:52

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 1:54

And you're using much less of it to to make it happen. So um but some of the the systems that we run into or get phone calls about, they either lack balancing or they're just not set up correctly. Right. Right.

Speaker 2:11

So take us through a system that, yeah, I mean you could have uh you know a high-rise building or or um hotel where maybe you have multiple risers throughout that building, and you know, maybe one bank of rooms is you know has hot water right away, and the next bank might take a minute to get hot water. So that balancing valve is gonna help you control the flow through each one of those risers to get that water distributed equally throughout the building.

Speaker 5 2:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2:40

Water's lazy, right?

Speaker 5 2:42

Yeah, that's what it boils down to. Yeah, yeah. Water's always gonna go the shortest route possible back to that circulator that's pushing them. So um if that's that first loop, you know, right right off the circulator, it's just gonna make that loop. And the only way to get it to move on to the next riser is to restrict the flow through that loop with a balancing valve. But if you're gonna restrict one, you gotta keep going.

Speaker 3:05

You gotta restrict them all. Exactly. Yeah, you you have to have a balancing valve on each one of the risers. Exactly. Yeah, each one of the branches.

Why A Ball Valve Fails

Speaker 2 3:13

Yeah, so you're kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul, but that's that's what you need to do. That's how it works, right? So you add a restriction. Um there's a lot of versions of restriction, right? Just the pipe itself, the pipe size, additional fittings. Um, so you have friction losses there. And then you also have different devices. Now, uh, if you tell me your favorite one is a ball valve, we might have to have a conversation about it. The ball valve is not a balancing valve. No, it's all or nothing with a ball valve. And that's what the majority of systems we do see. Well, yeah, we have balancing. Okay, well, what what balancing valve are you using? Is it a is it a Tico? Is it a a BNG circuit setter?

Speaker 3:55

You know? Oh, we have we have a lot of valves, you know, a lot of different types of valves to help you balance the system. I think one of the most common, probably seen out there, is just your basic manual balancing valve. Yeah, and which is like a globe, essentially most usually like a globe valve design.

Manual Balancing And The Hard Part

Speaker 2 4:10

Yeah, and everybody will call it a quote unquote circuit setter, and that's BNG's name for it. It's like Kleenex, right? For a nose wipe. In this case, uh, they're not that expensive to buy. You know, it's NPT threads in and out or sweat. Uh you put them in, it's got numbers on it, cool. We can we can adjust it, right? What number do you set it to, Greg? Great question. I don't have a clue what number. I mean, we have we have charts, right? We have curved charts that we send with these products, but you look at it and there's well, it takes some tools. Yeah, there's ports on them. There's call them what you want, pizza ports, pizza ports, pizza ports, peat tea ports, whatever. They don't come with pizza, unfortunately, and I'm kind of hungry right now. But you need to have the tools to set them up, you need to know how to use the tools to set them up. Right.

Speaker 5:04

Yeah.

Speaker 2 5:05

And if you have a hundred of that style of valve in there, every little adjustment you make changes the the dynamics of the entire system. Correct. One can throw it off for the other 99.

Speaker 5:17

Well, and when you get to the 99th, now you have to kind of go back to the beginning and probably make some readjustments because as you change that system pressure throughout the different branches, it's gonna revert all the way back to the first one you set and could could create a difference there as well. Right.

Speaker 5 5:36

Yeah, there are contractors that that literally is their entire job just to balance buildings because it take takes a couple of minutes with a manometer at each valve, like you said, and then each one, once you get it set, you gotta kind of double check the whole system. They all they all rely on each other.

Speaker 2 5:52

Now, wait a minute. You said just the differential meter, but there's probably a flashlight in the teeth, and there's also a ladder that has to get you through the itchy insulation of the ceiling, right? And it's all of it, it's it's a lot more than just a lot of steps.

Speaker 6:09

Yeah, here it's a trap around the building or up the up the up the elevator or whatever. Right. Well, now is the contractor setting that? So if I'm the plumbing contractor and I come in and I install, you know, 50 balancing valves, is it my responsibility to go through and set those?

Speaker 5 6:26

Do it's ultimately to hand the job over. I would say, yeah, it's it's your responsibility to have the building balance.

Speaker 6:33

Yeah, but there's certain municipalities and areas where they require a third-party balancing contractor to come in and do that. Sure.

unknown 6:41

Yeah.

Speaker 6:41

So I mean that's an extra step in the building process and extra cost.

Fixed Flow Options For New Builds

Speaker 2 6:45

Yeah, so that's uh consult your local municipality for proper instruction. That's just what it is. Um we have a little easier option though, don't we? We have a few. Yeah, we have a few. Um we have the the kind of uh lock it in, pick your flow rate and and install it and walk away type of deal. Um, we have a couple of versions with the the differential cartridge type. Um, and a lot of contractors around here, especially go that route because they're pretty inexpensive to buy. It takes away all the guesswork, they look at it, print, and this is mostly new construction. We're talking here, this isn't retrofit. Uh, but to put balancing in a system, they'll they'll rely on the engineer to go through and spec all the flow rates for each riser, and they will send an order for either our 127 or the Y-shaped 128. And they'll get a cartridge in there with said flow rate. They'll install it, they'll commission the job, and up here they don't usually check flows, they just, oh, we got hot water going here, it should be fine. Right. And and they'll walk away from it. So they don't have a whole lot to do with the balancing side of it other than installing the device that you know that creates the pressure drop in that loop. And in this case, it's that that uh 127 or the 128.

Speaker 5 8:14

Right, those are orderable everywhere from I think as low as 0.35 GPM all the way up to 15 GPM. And a lot of increments in between there. Um, so I mean, if you know if it says on the print, hey, we need one GPM to this bank of sinks, or one with a one GPM cartridge in there, install it, and it's pretty much just set it and forget it.

Speaker 2 8:36

Yep. The only issue I see, and there's always an issue, right? Right, is say you got a pallet full of these and they're maybe five different flow rates. Well, someone grabs it, they see it's a half-inch connection where okay, we need to go in, we put it in. We needed a one gallon a minute one, but oh shoot, we put in a three-gallon a minute one. Now what do we do? Well, you break the unions and you swap them, you know, it's pretty simple. Well, yeah, that's the advantage to our union connections. Or or if they decide that hey, this really isn't working very well at one GPM. We don't have any spare ones we can swap it with. Now what do we do? Well, we need more flow here because hey, we had to go around the heating guy's ductwork, you know, by 10 feet with extra pipe and two more elbows. Well, that one GPM isn't enough to get it there. Maybe we need a one and a half. So you would call up, order a new cartridge, you'd have to take that out of the unions and break the body apart. If it's the 128, it's the Y-shaped one, it's like a Y-stringer, you just pull the plug and slide the cartridge out, it's really nice. And you swap cartridges, you get a new sticker to indicate what the flow is, and you're good to go.

Speaker 5 9:49

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's it's it's an easy fix. If if it's if you grab the wrong one, if you've got the wrong one in the wrong area, if something changes, you know, if you put an addition on or something like that, and suddenly the the demands change, um, it's easy enough to change it.

Speaker 10:04

But that's probably one of the limitations of the automatic balancing valve is that you're you're regulated by that flow cartridge. You can't make an adjustment like you can a manual. Correct. If you look at our 132 quick setter, that's kind of the best of both because it gives you you know the ability to adjust the flow rate um based on you know the flow rate parameters you order that valve in, whether you know, was it 0.5 to 1.75 or 2 to 7. 2 to 7 gallons a minute. Yep. And you can just pull the pin and make that adjustment, release the pin. You don't need a balancing contract or any special tools to do that.

Speaker 2 10:38

Yeah, it's the one that everybody calls the hand grenade. Um looks like a hand grenade, it's got the pull pin. So you just run that your your fluid through the bypass when you pull the pin, and then you make your adjustment on the it's an adjustable venturi in here. So just a simple basic adjustable wrench, and uh you you make your adjustment on the on the venturi and and make your flow where you want it.

Speaker 11:01

It's nice you can pull that pin at any time and verify that you're getting the correct flow that that you set that to. Uh balance, you know, a municipal you know, maintenance guy or inspector can pull the pin and verify flow rate. So it's just nice from that standpoint.

Speaker 3 11:17

And it's quick to set. Yeah. Very easy. Quick setter. Quick setter. Hey, there he is. I just got that.

Thermostatic Balancing By Temperature

Speaker 2 11:25

That's what it meant the entire time. Gosh. Um the other option we have out there, I think is a pretty neat idea. You know, it makes it I I call it it's like zoning thermostatically zoning a domestic hot water research system in that you have a thermostatic cartridge just like what's in a thermostatic mixing valve. As conditions change, it cools off, it heats up, it opens and closes, and it allows that that water to push on. It doesn't close off 100%, but this thermostatic cartridge will actually, once it gets warm, say we set it to 120 degrees for that loop, um, or maybe we set it to 110 because it's closer to the mechanical room, okay. That that will meet its 110. It will start to close off. It doesn't close off completely at 0.23 CV, so it allows what? Quarter GPS. Quarter GPM through it. Because anything thermostatic, in order for it to work properly, it has to have flow across the cartridge for it to sample what's going on. Exactly. Right. So when you cut it down to a quarter GPM, it slows down enough to where it can cool off. Right. And then it will open back up again. So you put these in a system, they're constantly opening and closing. They're they're push, allowing water to push where it needs to go without uh using an exorbitant amount of energy, provided we use the correct circulator, right?

Speaker 13:00

Yeah. Well, a couple things nice about it is one, you can set the temperature before you install the valve. Um, so you set the temperature, you install the valve, you think of a new building, you're starting to commission it and bring it, bring that system up to temperature. Um, all of those valves, because the research line is gonna be cool, are gonna be open all the way. So it's gonna start to flow water through the research. The the shortest branch with the less uh restriction is gonna come up to temperature, that's gonna start to close down, push the water on, um, and continue to modulate and to heat that whole building up equally and evenly.

Speaker 2 13:34

Exactly. It's a pretty neat option, you know, it's something different, you know, rather than picking a specific flow, you're picking a specific temperature. And because of you know, unforeseen changes in the build as we go, you can adjust for that. You know, there's other competition out there where you get one cartridge, that's what you're stuck with. If you need a new cartridge, you're basically ordering a whole new valve and swapping it out. Right. Where this is adjustable and lockable. Um adjustable from 95 all the way up to 140, I believe. Yeah, yeah, it's a pretty big range of adjustment. Yeah.

Speaker 14:14

Um, and better on the energy efficiency side too, because we always recommend pairing those with a variable drive pump, you know, pressure differential pump. Um, so that pump's gonna modulate and use less energy as that when that building's up to temperature than you know, and start to ramp up as it needs to to send water through the risers.

Speaker 2 14:34

Yeah, it it does that just by sensing the the change in pressures as these things close off and and open. And it also prevents another thing called erosion corrosion and piping. You know, so you're not running full speed all the time, these start to close off, you create more pressure in the system. It turbulates around in the piping and in the fittings, it could start to wear wear holes in it.

Speaker 14:58

Yeah, and that's where the variable pump is important because if you put a you know a standard single-speed pump in that building size for the building loop, as those start to modulate down, that velocity is gonna go up.

Legionella Disinfection And Automation

Speaker 5 15:09

Yeah, it's a it's critical that if you are gonna be using these style thermostatic mixing valves, you absolutely need to be using an ECM pump um in delta P mode so that it can sense that pressure drop as these closed or the pressure increase as these closed down and regulate itself just to avoid you know pitting out piping valves, everything like that. Um now, one other thing that's really cool about our version that I wanted to get into, we're we're gonna talk more about this on a future um episode, but Legionella management um is becoming more and more important, popular, friend of mine stuff. Um thermal bypass cartridge where it's preset to say 140, 150. Um, and if you are doing a thermal disinfection program, which can also be done with our LegioMix that we talked about in the last episode, um if this now now if you're running 150 degree water through the system, obviously this valve is satisfied as far as balancing, but this second thermal disinfection port will actually open up and allow full flow back through so that you can get scalding hot water through that piping, killing any bacteria that's been building up.

Speaker 16:26

Yep. Yeah, and it's nice is as that water temperature starts to drop, as you come out of that disinfection mode, that bypass cartridge will close.

Speaker 2 16:34

Yes.

Speaker 16:35

Uh, we also have an option on the bypass where you can put uh connect to a thermoelectric actuator and you can tie it into a building automation system. Um and then you could set up a schedule for thermal disinfections. Say you wanted to, you know, you had a hotel with you know four four towers and you wanted to do thermal disinfection in tower A this week and tower B next week, you could have that building automation system open the bypass for thermal disinfection when as you schedule it.

Speaker 2 17:04

Yeah, it's it's pretty neat what you can do. Um I think this one here is the Swiss Army knife of the thermal balancing valves that we offer with the with the two ports in it. Um you have the ability to, like you said, uh put either the the 140 or the 160 degree uh temperature bypass cartridge, the thermal cartridge, or we put the the little mechanical shutoff in there and we thread on the 6564, we'll say uh the thermal thermal motor, and it it's gonna get driven with 24 volt signal from the BMS system.

Speaker 17:41

And also available with a temperature gauge or outlet jack.

Speaker 5 17:45

And actually, this is an older model, but um having three-quarters, which the vast majority of your balancing valves are gonna be half or three-quarter inch. Um, those bodies are available with unique connections to the body now, too.

Serviceability And Final Takeaways

Speaker 3 17:55

Yeah, with ISO valves as well. ISO valves as well. And it's easy to service nice.

Speaker 2 18:00

Yeah, serviceability is probably the biggest feather, one of the biggest feathers in our cap, I think, but our products is we sell replacement um adjustment cartridges, replacement disinfection cartridges, the shutoffs. Um, you can get these valves with isolation valves too, with the unions. It's really nice. Um, all of them are gonna have the check valve on the outlet side when we're talking half and three quarter. They're they're right into the body. Built in, yep. Yep. Um, you can use it as a transition piece because it's unioned. You can go pex in, um, hard pipe out, whatever you want to do. Uh, you can order just bodies and tail pieces if you want to. It's pretty nice. What else did we need to cover with this?

Speaker 18:41

I don't know. I think we touched on it. I think I think so. Yeah, I think I think you know it depends. It doesn't matter how your system's designed, we're gonna have a balancing valve that's gonna be an option to do what you needed to do.

Speaker 5 18:54

Yeah, absolutely. And uh again, if you've got any questions at all, uh give us a call and we're here to help. Yeah, we'd love to talk. Especially Ryan. Ryan loves it.

Speaker 19:03

Not this one. A little quiet this time.

Speaker 3 19:05

That's all right. That's fine. I couldn't get a word in edgewise.

Speaker 2 19:08

I know. That's okay. You'll uh you'll meet your word quota on the next episode. Yeah, here we go. Everybody, thanks for listening. We'll catch you on the next one. Bye, everybody. See you later. See ya.

Speaker 4 19:20

Well, that's a wrap for this episode. Got questions or stories to share? We'd love to hear from you. Reach out and let's keep this conversation going. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen. Until next time, stay curious and keep your systems running smoothly.