Faux Manifold

June 13
Wednesday morning, Mark and Emily met us at the lot to help us finish up the last four zones.  We had to reconfigure the last zone in the family room area a bit so we didn't run out of PEX tubing.  In the guest bedroom we tried to deviate from my design, but realized that it needed to go down exactly as planned.  Rob and I actually got out our Sharpie and measuring tape and drew out several quick lines and arrows so we'd know where to lay the tube.  We were surprised at how much more quickly we were able to finish the layout doing it that way.  Too bad we waited to figure that out until we only had one and a half zones left to finish.

Mark and I went back over the whole floor with the stapler to make sure there were staples about every two feet.  There were some stretches of tubing where the staples were close to five feet apart and because the tube is full of air it would have floated to the top of the concrete while it was curing.

While we did that, Rob and Emily finished up the details on the manifold.  The sub who is going to create the real manifold and connect all our tubing to the boiler asked us to make sure the tubes were labeled with the zone and the loop.  Emily colored the supply side of the loop red to indicate that it was the hotter water.  The return side of the loop was colored blue to indicate cooler water.  The water doesn't really change temperature that significantly but it does make it easier to tell the tubes that belong together in the loop.  If I'd been able to create a "perfect" design the tubes would have gone red blue red blue red blue and so on. 

We needed to fit all the tubing into a two foot space.  Unfortunately, part of that space was right on top of a monolithic footing so that gave Rob about a foot and a half to work in.  He could have started the first loop an inch or two closer to the footing but as it turned out he ended the last loop at exactly the two foot mark.  He used the conduit to line the tubing up in order and hold them in place for the concrete pour.

This is the back side of Rob's design.  Dad suggested that we run the loop for the little bedroom straight back through the manifold and under the wall.  Doing this kept the two tubes out of the mechanical room, out of the doorway (that was already crowded) and out of the hallway that was already going to be super warm due to all the other loops running through there.  It also gave the tubing a straight shot from the boiler to the room instead of turning three corners before it started heating the room.  Our builder said if we wanted to do that we should run the tube through a metal conduit to offer protection from any nails that might go through the stud wall into the concrete floor.

Here is Rob standing proudly next to his creation.  The outer pieces of rebar hold up the 2"x4"s.  The bottom 2"x4" has holes drilled through it for the tubing to run through which keeps it from flopping around and ending up in the concrete.  The top piece of wood is for stability.  There are two short pieces of rebar holding the conduit tightly together and the rebar tied crosswise behind the conduit helps everything stay up.  I was impressed!

Mark and Emily were standing next to the manifold while we were starting to clean up.  For fun, Mark blew into one tube to see if he could blow on Emily.  The air came through (just as it should have).  Rob decided this was a good way to do a basic pressure test so he capped off one end with his thumb and blew into the other end.  He had done about three loops when he realized we were paying the heating contractor to do this and he didn't need to become lightheaded trying to prove we did a good job.

The next day the heating contractor capped off one end of all the tubes, hooked the other ends together and installed a pressure valve.  Basically, this will stay on until the boiler is installed.  We can watch this valve as the basement is finished to make sure none of the tubes are damaged.  It's reassuring to know that we will be able to see immediately if there is any damage that will need to be repaired so our heating will work as it is meant to.

Next up, Concrete!

All in a Day's Work

June 12
After being rescheduled twice it was finally time to get our radiant heat installed in the basement.  Monday evening (after FHE ended), Rob and I went up to the lot and moved most of the bundles of XPS right next to the foundation so we would be ready to start the next morning.  Rob and I picked up Granddad around 8:00 am, borrowed a couple of tools from Laurie and Bryce and were working by 8:30.  We couldn't have had more perfect weather.  My sister, Karen, showed up about an hour later.  That ended up being the perfect crew for our first full day of work.

We started in the northwest corner of Rob's office and dropped full sheets of XPS insulation.  By the way - the printing on the foamboard is not permanent and it will stain your fingers, or your clothes, or your hat if it is even the slightest bit wet.  We discovered that putting a board on our head and balancing it was the easiest way to move them.  They weren't a bit heavy, just a little bulky as they were 4'x8' (by 2")

The first part went down super quickly and according to plan. 

Once we had all the full size boards down we went back and filled in the gaps.  We wanted to leave as few as possible without excess waste of the boards. 

We were glad to have Dad supervising because of his knowledge in this area.  If it had been up to me, I would have rearranged the boards so we could cut larger pieces and have fewer smaller pieces to fit in.  He convinced us it would be just fine to fit the puzzle pieces together and that it would do as well a job insulating.  Doing it his way allowed us to have enough foam board left to insulate our cold storage room.  (disclaimer - it still bothered me to see the little bits and pieces fit in here and there, but I tried to remind myself it was good enough and I'd never know the difference once the concrete was poured)

We had to leave the foam board off the monolithic footings and we also had to leave it off the area where the footings still needed to be poured to connect with the foundation.  It was odd to step on that area as the gravel base sloped away at that point and the foam board was definitely bouncy.  It also made it difficult to staple the tubing down as the board flexed when we pushed the stapler down.

We had all the insulation down around lunch time so we texted Jesse.  He wanted to help us lay out the walls.  His spray paint is orange.  Ours is green.  I'd been working on this for so long that I wanted to paint the lines for the walls and doorways.  This is important so we know where to run the PEX.

We had the spray paint out and were joking about tagging the walls (kind of like we did the cement) since it was going to be all covered over with insulation and sheetrock anyway.  Karen talked me out of doing it, but I was able to convince Grandad to do a little tag.  Isn't it cute!  Now we'll always have a little bit of Granddad & Grandma's love in our home.
 

B+B

Once we had all the walls and doors marked it was time to lay out the PEX.  Maybe someday I'll do another post extolling all the virtues of this tubing but for now I'll just say I'm glad someone invented it because we wouldn't have been able to make this work without it.

We started in the study and then worked our way into the family room before we finished for the day.  We were able to get four loops down our first day which left four loops for the second day.

Rob built a nifty little fake manifold to support and organize the tubes as they come into the mechanical room.  This was one impressive piece of work!

In the picture above you can see the three loops (six tubes) going through the doorway into Rob's office.  This is the door that will open to the audio-video rack.  He's doing a great job on that design and will hopefully put together a post with those details.

This is how our basement looked at the end of the first day.  We were so pleased with all we had been able to accomplish and were so grateful that Granddad and Karen came to help. 

The insulation works because it was definitely warmer standing on it then it was standing in the backyard area.  Rob thought ahead and brought our little 10'x10' shelter which was perfect as it gave us a shady place to take a break every once in awhile and to eat the lunch that Grandma so graciously picked up for us.

At one point, Karen looked up and saw a sundog (a rainbow circling the sun).  That was pretty amazing to see, but then we realized that it was a double sundog.  Granddad started talking about ice crystals in the sky, but I preferred to consider it a blessing on our day and on our home.

Hydronics Layout

This is part of what I've been spending my time designing. 

First, Rob and I had to figure out how many zones we wanted in the basement.  Each zone is controlled by a thermostat, so all the rooms or areas in that zone would be consistently heated. 

We decided we wanted the office to be one zone, the family room and bathroom would be a second zone and the bedrooms would be a third zone.

Then, Ray (over at Peterson Plumbing Supply) worked up our heat loss calculation.  This is determined by several factors including the size of the room, how many exterior walls there are, and the number and size of windows and doors.  I know there is more than that, but that's the simple version.

He determined how many loops of PEX we need for each zone, how long each of those loops need to be and the distance they need to be laid from each other. Then I took those calculations and started to design the best way to fit the linear feet of tubing into each room - from the boiler - through the room - back to the boiler in one continuous loop without crossing the lines.  Each colored line in my drawing represents one loop.  We had two loops in zone 1, two loops in zone 2 and four loops in zone 3.

 

If we had an exterior wall that wasn't covered by earth (which is two and one half walls of our basement) we needed to run the PEX closer to the exterior wall (two lines of PEX at 6" centers) and that tubing needed to be the line that came directly out of the boiler so it would be the hottest.  As we moved into the interior of the room we were able to space the tubing at 12" centers.  I couldn't run the PEX too close to the walls.  I needed to run it through doorways and not under walls.  I had to avoid the areas where cabinets were going to be installed.  All of those factors played into how the design came together.

Some of the rooms were easier to configure than others and some of the areas I got too fussy about trying to make it perfect.  Also, you can't bend PEX too tightly or it will kink so all those square corners are really rounded corners but VISIO doesn't do curves too well (at least not in a way that makes it easy for me to caluclate linear feet). 

It was nice to have the design laid out ahead of time.  We had to make a few adjustments as we worked but overall we stayed pretty true to the design. 

The Foamboard Arrives

June 8

Once we had decided we were going to install radiant heat in the basement we knew we needed to figure out a way to insulate between the earth, the tubing and the concrete slab.  It's important to keep the heat in the house and not have it travel down to heat the earth.  That would not only be a waste of energy it would also be super expensive.  One option for below slab insulation is to use Bubble Foil.  Another option is to lay down Extruded Polystyrene Foam Board (also known as XPS).

Rob and I talked read what information we could find online, asked lots of questions and decided that XPS was the best option for us.  Some installers & suppliers think the bubble foil doesn't really have as good an r value as the XPS, so we would have had to lay down two layers, and that doubles the cost.  Also, by using foam board we'd be able to staple the tube right to the board as opposed to having to lay down a layer of concrete reinforcement (we've heard it called cattle fence and cattle guard, but it's really a type of rebar that is in 6" squares and comes in large flat sheets or large rolls) and then zip tie the tubing to that. 

We researched the price and realized that Home Depot had the best price.  After I worked out a design to utilize the best way to lay out the 8'x4' sheets we went down and ordered 61 sheets.

Rob wanted to haul it to our garage in the back of our little truck.  This would have meant multiple trips from the store to our garage, then multiple trips from our garage to the lot.  I gave him my funny look, which I'm pleased to say he recognized instantly (it's only taken 30 years) so he quickly asked about delivery.  Then I gave him my big smiley face. 

After we rescheduled the delivery once (due to delays getting the foundation started), we tried to reschedule it a second time, but they couldn't fit us in, so we just had it dropped at the lot a couple of days early. Luckily, it was well packaged and protected from the elements and from UV rays. This stuff doesn't like being exposed to the elements so we wanted to leave it wrapped up as long as we could.

The truck arrives with our XPS.

The first stack was easy to get off the truck.  The second stack took a little more maneuvering with the fork lift.  The top two bundles actually looked like they were more likely to tip off when we were there in person.  But the driver knew just what to do to keep everything balanced.

Noah and Grandpa get a kick out of watching the forklift.

61 sheets of XPS (and our VERY CROOKED porta potty)

We were very glad the foam board was well bundled as we had a pretty good windstorm move through and one of the smaller bundles ended up in the road.  It also made it easier for the crew to move out of the way when they brought the big gravel trucks in.

Kudos to Home Depot.  The employees we worked with for this specific order were great.  The customer service rep in the special order department answered every question we had and was super helpful and friendly.  The driver was pleasant and professional and skilled with his forklift.