We’re just gonna go with the outrageously green taxed tankless we already have. As soon as I said there’s a possibility of running out of hot water and that being a choke point we decided to just use the tankless. Thanks for the help everyone!!
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Well we’re getting close to everything being hooked up…finally. Is anyone else running RO/distilled water through their jackets? Our contractor said we should basically have it running/recirculating from a giant bucket of distilled water. The only reason I could come up with is hard water deposits.?? Or could we just hook this up to our normal water line?
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What’s your tap water hardness?
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Generally that’s for concern about the heat exchanger scaling up on the water heater. I honestly wouldn’t bother
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I was planning on putting 20-30% glycol in my loop this time round (boss wants 50% but that sacrifices heat capacity imo).
When dumping -50C solvent into the collection pot with the heat off (so N2 can be vented) I’ve had straight water freeze up on me…took forever to get circulation/heat going again.
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Looks beautiful, but why in the hell does the plumber suggest a large reservoir of water. Closed loop system with air seperator and water make up line for the win homie…
We ran regular water through ours… I might drop some bleach in the system from time to time to keep any biological growth under control
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So does the water recirculate even when your not tapping off the line?
If so I’d put a valve on the recirculating loop so you can control the flow to and from all your jackets.
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I’ve come in to find the plumber had run over 300ft of 1” pex to get water to a hot loop for an FFE.
It proved useful to have water run all that way eventually, but the concept of “loop” simply did not exist in their world.
My current loop has make up water, and I have considered adding a 50gal tank as a reservoir.
Why? Same reason as I’m considering glycol. So I don’t freeze the HTF in my collection jacket when I dump without the heat on…
By blowing out the jacket on the collection at the end of each run, I can drop in at -50C without risk of freezing my heat transfer fluid (water. No glycol). Blowing (or sucking, because hot water heater tanks will take full vac!) into an insulated (conceivably heated with a level gauge) tank would conserve water and heat. At that point I’d have zero excuse for not playing the vac then heat on my columns too.
Ah, my collection is always warm and I’m recovering upon injection.
Water freezing was my concern too but after seeing @midsfactory turn his water on at the end after some 50lbs of -35 solvent came in, I never worried about it again.
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I’ve successfully frozen up an MEP starting the heat after dumping. Never want to make that mistake again.
Really looking for excuses to institute heat/drain/vac on my material columns.
Also not trying to ‘jack @Gumby’s thread…just exploring the edges of the subject for those arriving here via the search feature 
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not trying to derail further but I have always wondered if water freezing would compromise the jacket, I have always been sketched out about letting anything with water in the jacket get too cold for that reason just curious what people have seen who have done it anyone mess up a jacket by letting the water freeze?
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Ive had a 4"x24" molecular sleeve jacketed column severely dent inwards after leaving it full of water and letting it accidentally freeze do to the weather.
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Totally agree. having actually frozen one up, it’s not something I want to repeat.
That said, freezing did no visible damage to the collection pot I froze up. I’ve since hydro-tested it at 350 PSI, and it passed.
that is my plan this time out. convincing the boss that less (glycol) is more (heat transfer) is still an open issue…
In the past I have run HC-50 on both the hot & cold side, and actually plumbed my collection for both hot & cold. keeping the reservoirs balanced was a manual operation, and HC-50 is just plain nasty. Probably won’t try that particular trick again.
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Its nice to have evaporation and condensation in the same loop. My water never overheats my oil and my water will never freeze
Big derp energy when you all figure this one out.
@downtheterphole the man the myth the legend
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I run denatured alcohol $12/gallon at menards. The more water in the cold loop the more likely it is to ice up in the DI submerged coil
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I found a used deionized 9.5kw electric heater for a good price. These things go for like $1k new. Not needed for the building hot water but could be beneficial in a hot recovery loop. Its tiny like 10" tall and maybe 5#
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Shit, pick it up… If it’s a good deal, you can afford to hold on it until you get the price you want for it… 
If you don’t pick it up let me know! Or if you do and want to sell it I could put that to use
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What’s your work schedule look like? How much space do you have?
Might be better to run a really large hot water tank, that way you can “store” a bunch of kw as the heater will work even when you’re not there.
Might be a way to sneak some more working kws into your building if you’re limited by your power panel.
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