Zone Valves vs. Zone Circulators

Residential Focus
Presented by John Barba, Dave Holdorf, and Rick Mayo
Since the first amphibians crawled out of the slime, this debate has been raging: Which is better, zone valves or zone pumps? In this Taco Tuesday webinar, we’ll examine that question by looking at the pros and cons of each. Whichever way you choose, you’ll learn how to make sure you have the right circulator (or circulators) for the job, and we’ll start looking at the wild and wonderful world of variable speed and how they can optimize your system, no matter how you choose to zone. You won’t want to miss this fast-paced, fact-filled hour of wall-to-wall hydronics!

[@iosebbegiashvili8145]

Very intresting.I wish,all maths was in metric.

[@sv650bighammer]

Is it odd that my system has both zone valves and circulator pumps?

[@TacoHVACtv]

Hi Pete, I have the very same thing in my house, you can have your zoning with zone valves as well as circulators. However what is not typical is that on a zone, you should need a zone valve AND a circulator. I have seen installations like this and it installed in this manner to prevent gravity hot water flow in a zone when that zone was not calling for heat. The zone valve acted as a positive shut off. I would have installed a check valve on the system after the zone circulator. If you have further questions, please don't hesitate to contact our Technical Services Team at Taco.

[@dwaynesykes694]

If you're fine feeding the same water temp to all your low-temperature loops (e.g. radiant floor heat), set-it-and-forget-it mixing valves are the way to go. Slap a dumb circulator in there with some zone valves and you're off to the races. Budget permitting, there's the dream: independent digitally controlled injection pumps per-zone (or group of zones). Honestly, as cheap as circulators are these days it's not _that_ cost prohibitive, and is the design I'm leaning towards for my dream house in a few years. Last I checked, a digitally controlled circulator is cheaper than an electronic mixing valve. Is it overkill given the thermal mass of a concrete slab? Almost certainly. Does it mean I can go wild with building unnecessary software solutions in search of perfectly even heat with zero "bang-bang" control logic? Yes.

[@TacoHVACtv]

There are so many ways to control a hydronic system and as long as the end result is achieved, go for it!