Heating System

We use a 650,000 btu boiler to provide hot water heating (hydronic) for our larger house. The following is a piping diagram of one side of the double-bay structure (both sides are the same). Eventually, we may need to install piping on both sides of each row. Since we have root zone heating, we thought we would try this layout before installing pipe around each grow bed.

Note: Since the original installation, we have gone back and added piping to the two inside grow beds. The results are very positive. It takes a little longer to heat the additional water but, we are running much lower temperatures. Before, it was common to run the system at 160° to 180° on a 30° night. Now we run the system at 140° and don't seem to be burning any more propane then before. The downside it that we had to eliminate the root zone heating. This may be added back next year.

Note: 2004 - we began controlling the boiler with the greenhouse controller rather then the built in thermostat on the unit itself. This helps cycle the boiler off more often and has helped same some money. This goes back to doing things right up front!!