Hey Blew-by-You, bet you thought I was going on a tirade about those gas-guzzling pre-fuel injection cars you are so found of——Not. Instead, we're talking about water distribution.
Levi Ross (formerly of Sunshine Propane) started building the radiant heating system this week. I had routed all the supply and return tubing through the subfloor and arranged the bundles of Pex tubing by zones (3) and loops (11 total). Mounted a 4'x8' sheet of plywood to the basement wall to mount all the paraphernalia on painted it a less than appetizing Forest Green (Craig, this compliments the Forest Service Brown shingles on your old house). Hey, we're not making artwork here, just heat.The manifold system consists of 2 8-port tubes (one with shutoff valves) and 4 4-port tubes (2 with shutoff valves). There are pumps for each zone, but only two are installed (one is in the hands of UPS Ground delivery service right now). All this stuff is interconnected with 3/4 and 1" copper pipe, skillfully brazed together by Levi. The water heater is a 60 gallon Polaris with a stainless steel liner (read $4000). This baby is 95% efficient, so we're going to wring most of the BTUs out of that propane. (Natural gas is not available on the Olympic Peninsula). Interestingly, propane generates 1 gal of waste water (from the cooled exhaust gas) per hour when the heater is running full tilt, so the heater is close to the floor drain and sump basin. We'll keep that sump pump exercised pretty well, especially in the winter.
The big white PVC pipe to the left (east) of the heater is the an air intake, and the muffler-like sausage is an air filter. It seems that little buggers (mosquitoes, gnats, etc.) have a liking for propane and will fly down the pipe and roost on the wire-mesh flame spreader. After a while you have a nice coating of roaster buggers and poor heat transmission. The round cylinder at the top is an expansion tank for the radiant heating fluid (water). As I mentioned before, the domestic water comes off the same system but this won't get built out for a while. For now, Levi's about done. Once all the parts are connected and open pipes are plugged, we'll do an air-pressure test and see if we have any leaks. If so, out comes the pipe cutter and Pex connectors. No worries, everything can be fixed.
Levi Ross (formerly of Sunshine Propane) started building the radiant heating system this week. I had routed all the supply and return tubing through the subfloor and arranged the bundles of Pex tubing by zones (3) and loops (11 total). Mounted a 4'x8' sheet of plywood to the basement wall to mount all the paraphernalia on painted it a less than appetizing Forest Green (Craig, this compliments the Forest Service Brown shingles on your old house). Hey, we're not making artwork here, just heat.The manifold system consists of 2 8-port tubes (one with shutoff valves) and 4 4-port tubes (2 with shutoff valves). There are pumps for each zone, but only two are installed (one is in the hands of UPS Ground delivery service right now). All this stuff is interconnected with 3/4 and 1" copper pipe, skillfully brazed together by Levi. The water heater is a 60 gallon Polaris with a stainless steel liner (read $4000). This baby is 95% efficient, so we're going to wring most of the BTUs out of that propane. (Natural gas is not available on the Olympic Peninsula). Interestingly, propane generates 1 gal of waste water (from the cooled exhaust gas) per hour when the heater is running full tilt, so the heater is close to the floor drain and sump basin. We'll keep that sump pump exercised pretty well, especially in the winter.
The big white PVC pipe to the left (east) of the heater is the an air intake, and the muffler-like sausage is an air filter. It seems that little buggers (mosquitoes, gnats, etc.) have a liking for propane and will fly down the pipe and roost on the wire-mesh flame spreader. After a while you have a nice coating of roaster buggers and poor heat transmission. The round cylinder at the top is an expansion tank for the radiant heating fluid (water). As I mentioned before, the domestic water comes off the same system but this won't get built out for a while. For now, Levi's about done. Once all the parts are connected and open pipes are plugged, we'll do an air-pressure test and see if we have any leaks. If so, out comes the pipe cutter and Pex connectors. No worries, everything can be fixed.
