Thought Some Might Enjoy Seeing This- New Heating System in my Brother's House

[BigguyZ]

Well I had a thread in here about this before, but I was asking for opinions/ experiences. Now, I can post my own thoughts.

My brother's house was badly damaged in the Tornado that hit Minneapolis last May. As a result, we had to guy his entire house. This also afforded us a few opportunities, however. One of them was replacing his old boiler. But if you're going to do that, there was no reason to stick blindly to the same type of system you had before. Therefore, after a lot of research and even more debating, my brother decided to go with underfloor radiant heat. We sold the old radiators for the house, and installed PEX pipe between each joist- stapled up with aluminum fins against the old subfloor.

So once everything's installed, instead of one really hot mass of iron heating the space, the entire floor will be warmed- controlled as two separate zones- one per floor. Each zone has 3 circuits of 300'. Running the tubing took a lot of time, but we got that completed a while ago. Then we installed the heat source.

Becasue the radiant heat doesn't need to get as hot as a traditional radiator system, a boiler wasn't necessary. Instead, we opted for a $2,700 water heater that is 96% efficient. This will supply both the hot water for the heating system, and for the potable water to be used in the house. Since the pumps are stainless steel and the pipes are plastic, there's no issue with the heating system not maintaining potability. Also, since the water is not stagnant, other concerns about lysteria are also addressed.

The other thing that is nice, is that the heater is vented through plastic pipe, and there's no need for it to go through the chimney. This allowed us to move the mechanical room to a more remote corner of the basement, allowing better use of the space.

Anyways, I just finished building the heating panel and am pressure testing the system. I really hope that pressure gauge says 80PSI when I get there tonight! Then we just need to have the inspector's sign off on it and we're done... on that part. Then there's the Drain, Waste, Vent plumbing, then the supply plumbing, then the electrical, then the communications wiring, then the interated audio wiring. At least after that's done the insulation and drywall will be done professionally.

Anyways, here's a bunch of pics for everything. Hopefully some people will enjoy seeing them, since it's something different.

Travis

[pelligrini]

Pretty cool stuff. I hope you like plumbing...

[tommyt654]

Very cool and energy efficient, If it wasn't 70 degrees here today I might have considered that an option for our new home

[BigguyZ]

Pretty cool stuff. I hope you like plumbing...

Not so much. I love PEX tubing b/c it's so much faster than working with copper... For this, it was a LOT of cutting, deburring, polishing, fluxing, and soldering. And I'm always worried about overheating ball valves, so I took a lot of time cooling down valves and sections after soldering a joint... So yeah, that took a LOT of time. Luckily, I'm at a point now where I'll mostly just be using PEX for the supply lines.

DWV plumbing is pretty new to me, but I'm learning a LOT!

[pelligrini]

Hehe, I bet you have learned a lot. That was a pretty complex manifold system.

The only sweating of pipes I have done was persperation just thinking about doing it myself.

[JR]

... And I'm always worried about overheating ball valves ...

Maybe you need some of those Schwetty Balls.

[toolguy1000]

....... And I'm always worried about overheating ball valves......

for future reference (and some of this you may aleady know) sweat with the ball valve in the open position and cover valves with wet rags to help prevent their getting too hot.

your set up looks very professional and the sweated joints appear to be well done. did i see some stub outs for future uses? if that's what i saw, that's the sure sign that pro didn't do it. they only plumb in the minimum necessary with no thought to the future.

[ShiroYama]

will do same

I'll do same things too !

[BigguyZ]

for future reference (and some of this you may aleady know) sweat with the ball valve in the open position and cover valves with wet rags to help prevent their getting too hot.

your set up looks very professional and the sweated joints appear to be well done. did i see some stub outs for future uses? if that's what i saw, that's the sure sign that pro didn't do it. they only plumb in the minimum necessary with no thought to the future.

Thanks! Actually, the manifolds were pre-built ones, as I wanted to save time. I think the bigger hint that it wasn't a pro would be if I didn't add a plug to the shutoff. Here, even if there's a stop you need to have it plugged. So there's no chance someone can open the valve accidently and leave it open.

Either way, when we pulled the permit we told them we are doing the work, so there's no concern if they know.

[billwmeyer]

That ought to be a real money saver! I am curious though, how you are keeping the water from freezing without heat in the mean time.

Great job.

Bill

[natausch]

We have a hydro-heat system installed in our '91 house. The principles are the same, except the hot water flows through a radiator which has a squirril cage blower behind it to create radiant forced heat.

It does take an amount of time for the heat system to work here in Chicago winter, about 20 minutes per degree rise, and effeciency of the system does have a ceiling; about 70 degrees, however, our average winter heat and gas (hot water heater and dryer only) bills total $190 in winter.

Once we take out what we pay for lights, cooking, washing, etc it means our average heat cost is about $100 per month. Our house is by no means large, only 1,700 square feet, but at that price we keep the heat at 64-68 from October to April.

[BigguyZ]

That ought to be a real money saver! I am curious though, how you are keeping the water from freezing without heat in the mean time.

Great job.

Bill

Good question. Right now there's no water in it. It's leak tested with air pressure, so there's no risk of freezing.


natausch- The forced air hydro system also works well. You can then still hook up A/C to it, which is nice. However, what I like about this is that there is no forced air component to it. I don't have bad allergies, but at my house, the dust kicked up with forced air is nuts. So the radiant systems are much easier in managing dust in the house.

I realized that myu phone was set for the lowest quality resolution. I'll upload some better pics later.

So far the air pressure tests have held- execpt for a leak at one of the water heater outlets that was capped. I tried another capping, and it's still leaking. I think I'm just going to sweat that fitting on, so I can just be done with that. Then we'll be ready for inspection!

toolguy1000- I forgot to note that's what I did everywhere I could. I also soldered as much as I could away from the mounting board so I could cool off the valves ASAP after sweating the joints.

[BigguyZ]

Well, the system passed inspection! I kinda felt like I got away with somthing though. The Pin valve that I had hooked the compressor up to started leaking. So when he checked the pressure, the hose from the compressor was hooked up to make sure it wasn't leaking out from there. I picked up a hose bib with a ball valve, which is a better way to go anyways, and I'll just swap it out. Still worried the heck out of me.