Apex question...DIY heater

[iplumbsome]

I have decided to heat my tank through my indirect water heater that is heated via my boiler. One of the reasons for this is I already have a hot water return line and pump that circulates throughout my house and it just so happens to run right above my tank.

My plan was to use a 3 way zone valve and a pex coil in my sump so when my tank calls for heat the 3 way valve will open and divert water through the sump coil.

I am big on redundancy so I was thinking about putting two 3 way valves in and also another small recirculation pump. That way I would be covered if my house recirculation pump dies or if one of the 3 way valves die. My only issue would be if I have a boiler issue and I am out of hot water.

I am planning on getting an Apex eventually, but with all this other planning I have going on I haven't even dug into the capabilities of this thing. I am assuming I'd need 3 outlets to accomplish this. One for the main zone valve, one for the back up zone valve, and the 3rd for the aquarium side redundant pump. Keep in mind I don't care that both pumps run when tank calls for heat. My question is can I program those plugs so that the pump comes on with both calls for heat? The 2nd zone valve will be set a degree or two higher and only come on in case zone valve one failed, but I of course would want the pump to run for both.

Maybe this is overkill because what is the likelihood of my main house pump and zone valve failing at the same time. If I did do it this way I could leave my house pump on a timer like it currently is to save some energy while no one is normally home.

 

[jacksonpt]

How does the zone valve work? I googled it quickly, and it's not a simple on/off or flow direction 1/direction 2 scenario, is it?

 

[iplumbsome]

How does the zone valve work? I googled it quickly, and it's not a simple on/off or flow direction 1/direction 2 scenario, is it?

I was going to use this one mainly because I have a few left over from a job.

https://www.supplyhouse.com/Honeywe...w2neYZqEN1ubnZsMqxQa5FDI7TKoF-lMaAi53EALw_wcB

Not sure why they really call them a zone valve. It's more of a diverting valve. The normally closed leg would be to the tank loop so with no power my circ line will just operate as normal but as soon as the Apex sends power to the transformer it will just divert the water down through my tank loop.

 

[Finhead]

You should be able to trigger it with the Apex Breakout box.

Qestion, do you not run some kind of glycol through your boiler/lines. I know our infloor heating for the Bodyshop we rn glycol throught the system for ovboius reasons.

 

[iplumbsome]

You should be able to trigger it with the Apex Breakout box.

Qestion, do you not run some kind of glycol through your boiler/lines. I know our infloor heating for the Bodyshop we rn glycol throught the system for ovboius reasons.

I have in floor heat which also is in my garage so in those loops I do run glycol. The loop I would tie the tank heater into is actually my domestic hot water. Kind of like in floor heat my domestic hot water is circulated throughout my house so you don't have to wait for hot water at each fixture.

Regardless this would be a closed loop running through a coil in my sump.

 

[iplumbsome]

You should be able to trigger it with the Apex Breakout box.

Qestion, do you not run some kind of glycol through your boiler/lines. I know our infloor heating for the Bodyshop we rn glycol throught the system for ovboius reasons.

Does the breakout box allow you to assign different functions to each outlet than?

 

[Finhead]

Does the breakout box allow you to assign different functions to each outlet than?

Sorry I misread what you were wanting to do with this. It wold be as simple as running the power adaptor from your valve off one of the EB8 outlets. you can then control that outlet with the Temp sensor as most do with there heaters.