Use the tie-down method for installations on or below grade.
Mine differs in a couple of ways. So how do we build one of these systems? Then you can control the tank temperature and choose any hot water loop temp, say 100 or 90 or whatever is needed to keep your floors just slightly warm. This works much better in my opinion.
If your shower area has an outside wall or two, maybe this would make showering a bit more pleasant. This requires oxygen-barrier PEX and an air eliminator. I work in a process industry and proper line sizing and length of those lines is very important to insure that each line will receive water equally. A small tip: take pictures of all the tubes of your heating system before they disappear beneath your floor. Alasdair Each length of pex begins in the utility core, makes its circuit around its designated zone, and comes back so that it will circulate the water in a closed-loop heat system. I did not want to be nailing down a plate for a closet and poking a hole in my heating system. Its an easy way of slightly reducing your energy consumption. Great question Joe I learned through reader feedback that you want at least 5x more R-value BELOW the pipes than you have above. That way you could use distilled water with a closed loop system for the hydronic and avoid scale buildup. The key now for him is to balance it correctly.
Also, have you considered the Rinnai 175C? I just finished a tankless HW HVAC system back in January. About 2400 pounds of 6x4 steel behemoths, welded together and bolted into everything in sight from foundation to roof sheathing, along with some shear walls and hold-down straps. Reply
On top of that, hydronic heating is an art and science unto itself, with things like T, GPM, BTU/hr, and R-value calculations involved. The tricks Im applying for my system: Boiling it all down, the system I ended up with is relatively simple, and I drew it out for you in this picture: My proposed radiant heat system (click for larger). Please keep us up on how its working!
I have needed to refer to those photos often over the years. I mean, shit, does this look like an easy do-it-yourself project to you? Excited to read your follow up post on this one. If so, you have a nasty, unstable hinge in your wall when the wind blows.
Gotcha! This is radiant heat in action: a warm surface shines out infrared light (also known as heat), which directly warms your skin.
Getting some panels or evacuated tube collectors will save you from buying gas you dont have to. S2aU!?uihq+$`\6'M',V#h|r:eB]"VE $HTX o!hpbrzy@`;ImGoW>f%)7[tsAm PT @{_n ERrIQSo56 (6 6|
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That's quite a compliment coming from an experienced installer of these systems.
Tim Fulton Since its not imperative that I heat my shop at all times, I just havent got it working again.
why cant we run boiler on electricity? The operating costs for a heat pump water heater are between 50-65% less when compared to standard electric water heaters.
My apologies if this has already been brought up, but the first thing that strikes me with your use of PEX rather than copper is the heat transfer. But with energy cheap and skilled labor and high-end home materials expensive, it takes more thought and experimentation to save energy AND money at the same time. Pexheat.com Custom Supply Piping Diagrams are created by trained professionals familiar with your project. I presume you had the wood thoroughly seasoned before laying it, otherwise it would split. a.
As the final cheat sheet, here is my shopping cart from PexSupply, my preferred supplier of plumbing stuff. Use a hot water storage tank to smooth out the temperature in your loops.
They will save you time and money by diagramming your supply piping and making sure the details are addressed before material is ordered. 
contact this location, Window Classics-West Palm Beach November 17, 2014, 4:55 pm. To solve a heat transfer problem you have to calculate both how much energy is being supplied by the hot side, and how much energy can be accepted by the cold side. Since I was building the house from scratch, I could easily run the wire in the walls and over to the utility core.
I mentioned that fact to our electric company energy expert and he said, "Wow!" I decided to go with forced air since I already had floor registers cut in tile floors, duct installed in all the impossible to reach-in-a-retrofit spots, and I really need AC as well. DIY difficulty I didnt want. (i) You could specify one that has a couple of loops through it, to facilitate solar heating. Very efficient and comfortable and NO noise, NO space needed for a furnaceand about 1/2 the cost of a forced air furnace (and we installed it ourselves). My primary heat source is a wood burner stove with wrap around boiler. And that was before he made me pour a whole new steel-reinforced footing in the basement and strap it to one of two new shear walls :-), Andy Connors Unfortunately, when I got quotes from some plumbers for this type of heating system, the cost was astronomical: $35,000 or more, when a full conventional heating system was only $10,000 installed.
We build various things for our Funny Farm and I write about them.
I located the thermostat in the living room, which in our house is a central location.
1.
Thanks for all your thoughts and insights. Read more at loopia.com/loopiadns . This is one of the more common installation practices for new construction. Clayton I built a sub-floor on top of a vapor barrier then laid the wood floor in the conventional manner. If these features can work efficiently and effectively in a place that was deemed colder than Mars this past winter, (Winnipeg, Canada) Im pretty sure they can work anywhere!
Radiant heating is the worst invention in history, our house gets colder then outside in the winter, and it's expensive, and there is never hot water.
My experience has been that standard tankless water heaters only last a few months when they are required to run 24-7. Jessica w
I think they were 4 feet wide, 6 feet tall, and maybe 1 foot thick.
I love radiant heat. 5. 7. 
As I go through my house renovating I am adding it as well.
I didn't mention we did lay slate or travertine tile in the two bathrooms and (real) wood floor in the bedrooms.
Each room has a thermostat. However, I think in Colorado for reasonably energy-efficient or passive houses, the combination of mini-split heat pumps and PV is way simpler and way more economic. Sweet!
The great thing about this blog is that there are many people reading right now (including professional plumbers) who have already done this, so if you have any suggestions on how to improve or simplify it further, it would be much appreciated and I will update the article as new information is received. In high school I did water treatment equipment installation and maintenance for my Dads company. I see you will be insulating beneath the pipes, but I wonder if that would be sufficient. This is a safety item that must be installed, preferably at the heater discharge. Im curious about how you installed your wood floor over the concrete, direct or float?
What amazes me is the parallel worlds which seem to exist in heating technology on different continents and the reaction of people to the other system (you have hot water in pipes going all around your house ? It is food safe and good to -50 deg.
2 more giant window openings still to come behind those plywood squares. Will there be glitches?
I slipped the pipes through 3/4" electrical conduit angles where the pipes needed to turn up the wall, and then slipped on 3/4" PVC pipe to keep them straight and protected during the building process. Slowing the water will lower the return water temperature, but it will also increase supply temperature (adding the same energy to less flow) causing the boiler to trip out sooner. If you are a Professional Plumber or Do-it-yourselfer, a Custom Supply Piping Diagram will go a long way keeping your project on tract. All dealt with by a control panel. The only heat loss of any note is along the exterior walls, otherwise we find no significant difference in different areas.
I renovated my current 100 year old 1300 sf home to accomodate a family of 4.
Thanks for the question.
Cost was $2.45 per 4-foot plate ($245 for each box of 100). Are you the owner of the domain and want to get started? We do have many heating systems like this Ive seen. I want to build neat energy-saving features into it, but they need to be cost-effective and homegrown whenever possible. Mr. Money Mustache Im super excited for you! Based on usage this first winter a typical 1000L oil tank will I believe last us for two years between refills.
I hope that the experiment works out because radiant heat is glorious! There are solutions. I thought it was particularly feasible due to the small square footage of tiny homes and the pex required, as well as the smaller heating load. First a quick word about heat transfer. 3. put in solar hot water panels.
My friend just told me about your site, I am looking forward to it.
Wouldn't it make more sense, for comfort, to reverse the direction so the hotter temp water is coming into the center of the rooms and the colder is going out around the perimeter, or, is it done the way you have it because the colder temp of the room would be around the perimeter because of exterior walls and windows? I designed and installed these systems for years in the Midwest. The plates fasten to the underside of the subfloor between the joists and feature a channel down the middle where the piping locks into place. 3 years ago. So my conclusion is that the tankless water heater is the weak link in such a system.
4. This assumes that the loop/zone will accept that heat. I did the same when my house was constructed so I knew where interior pipes and wires were run. Love the radiant, love the gas boilers. And condensing boilers are most efficient for heating when they are ticking away at a low level constantly, not modulating from full on to off. This is a great point. "Air in the lines comes up as the #1 issue setting these up the first time. contact this location, Window Classics-Tampa It might not be worth it if you buy it, but you can make one rather easily with a little ingenuity. I really wanted to install radiant heat in my house, but I currently lack the time as Im working my full time job and building my stache.
Well thought out sir! Add a system check valve (others have suggested both of these) I would put the check in the return line where it ties back into the cold water supply.
They are the best. They can probably guide you to hook this system up to an instant water heater. I futzed with it until the air was gone. heat pump and ducting, where all the ducts are along the perimeter walls.
3. Big fan here.
I will also publish a second post when everything is done, to show a few of the steps in progress and the finished pictures.
So, one needs to insure not only will your boiler and PEX system deliver enough heat, but will your floor move that heat into the floor and then into the room. Youve been instrumental in changing my financial life.
After quite a few long nights of research and online training videos, I have bought all the necessary parts and we are about to put this sucker in.
Thanks for the promo code on GPconservation.com, MMMjust purchased the tankless water heater Ive been mulling over for a while!!
Roch Naleway Mr. Money Mustache This is about installing hydronic radiant floor heating in a slab floor system.
It works but not as well as I would have liked.
Sunlight does play a role, when we get any that is. Our trained staff of expert radiant designers, field technicians and nationwide distribution network give you the service and support you can depend on for a partnership you can grow with for decades. February 22, 2014, 8:03 pm.
contact this location, Window Classics-Miami For this system the boiler controls the water temperature, so we can pick the temperature of the water. this will save you trouble latter, and when you do get some panels on the roof your set.
However, after digging through all this rubble, I found a few simplifications that bring the cost and complexity of radiant heat way down, to make it a DIY-compatible project for the average handy Mustachian.
February 21, 2014, 4:38 pm. But that probably would be more trouble than its worth and wouldnt work that well. Im not a residential framing expert but I know my way around structures generally and would hate to see your work compromised! You are right that I should really do a USEFUL DIY article that is applicable to people in more typical situations. We are still in the minority with our home features. I also wanted to do it all with a single boiler, but costs and time eventually kept me from the project.
Im in southwest Colorado, living in a straw bale house with 128 sq feet of solar hot water panels that provide 90 degree glycol/water to my propane boiler before it goes into the floor. And as for efficiency, in our 980 square foot well-insulated house, we average 33 KW a day during the coldest months in western Oregon. The kicker is, the house has radiant floor heating, and came with a 2005 boiler.
We love it and would do it again in a heartbeat! I have already run this by a system designer and received his nod of approval, and completed some of the installation, so I am sure we can get this to work. It works wonderfully!
Also look at the conditions it is designed to work under. Wire ties affix the PEX pipe to the wire mesh or rebar (typically every three feet) to ensure the pipe stays in place as the concrete is poured over the pipe and wire mesh or rebar grid system.
The cats love it. With the 30F delta T, it takes about 45 gallons per hour(11000/(30*8.34)), or 0.75 GPM, to put that heat into the space. Doesn't seem to make any difference about the heat in the rooms. Heck, its the middle of winter and the sun is shining right on it.
February 18, 2014, 6:38 pm, Cool, or Hot, one, put a close spaced set of tees for a solar thermal loop, sweet them in, put a ball valve on each one and cap it for now, ya got them in. Unlike yours, mine is mated to a Rheem/Ruud fan coil unit specifically designed for this application. You get 1 heat source included.
In an open loop system this is bad. But the radiant heat system will demand hot water almost continuously during the winter.
But our house in Boulder is a passive remodel and we stuck with gas forced air since it was already in place.
November 17, 2014, 4:47 pm.
Julien B. Ouellet
Then I went to college and earned my mechanical engineering degree.
Personally, I hate all the envelope perforations and outside air requirements for gas heating, whether for hot water boilers or forced air. Leave the possibility of combining your radiant project with solar and improving the efficiency of both pull away the heat that destroys the efficiency of solar panels and use it to even out the temperature of your basement or pre-heat the water for your tankless.
When my small construction company was building some houses from the ground up a few years ago, the architect highly recommended that we use hydronic (radiant) heat instead of forced air.
teacherman Pembroke Park, FL33023 Plus lots of passive houses use heat recovery ventilation units with some resistance heat elements included for backup.
OR, create two-loop system with a heat exchanger in between the two loops, so the heating water never touches the hot tap water.
Has an internal circulator which is a great bonus.
Mr. Money Mustache February 19, 2014, 2:52 pm. One for the hydronic heater and one for your hot water.
We almost didnt pass the home inspections because the inspector was not familiar with the primary heating solution we were using: When my husband and I built our home in 2001, we decided to do the following: Add a valve to each loop, either at the supply header or the return header.
Best, Emily. With heating and electricity generation accounting for nearly 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions, radiant helps manage energy usage and offers superior indoor environmental quality (IEQ) that forced-air systems just cant provide. Depending on the thermal resistance of the floor this may be more than can be moved at the assumed delta T of 10-15 degrees.
Do what industry does on heating systems circulate year round.
My system also provides the domestic HW via a tempering valve. We had been thinking about building new, but we love older homes. February 18, 2014, 2:22 pm.
Finished house but yet to connect up underfloor pipes yet so thanks for the instructable, Answer Ours was on the cold-water side, before the heater.). Included suspended wood floors in the basement, making floors more comfortable than the concrete alternative. 4 years ago, Thank you very much for your nice comments. The main cost will still be fuel. Mr. Money Mustache Damned heat exchanger added a degree of Me neither. Old ceiling height was at the bottom of that steel beam. Got a T- piece, put a schrader valve from a tyre in one end, a pressure gage on another & third end can be connected to the system with a quick release coupling.
Have you put thought into the hydraulics of the system? I wish you, Mrs. MM and the youngster many years of happiness in your new radiant floor heated home! You cant provide more heat than the cold side can accept. Mr. Money Mustache
Also, we dont have access to gas heating for water or air.
In a nutshell, you need something to heat the water (sometimes called a boiler), a network of tubing under your floor, and a pump to circulate that water through all that tubing: While the concept is simple, my summary leaves out a lot of detail. The warranty being voided is not a capacity issue as much as a water issue. So have you considered how you plan to get flow down each line. A shorter version of this story originally appeared on my blog: Wildcat Man. It seems to me that while PEX is superior in almost all other situations, particularly in the boiler room as you mention, copper piping might actually be preferable in the under-floor section simply because it would conduct heat so much better. There are several different heat transfer points in a radiant floor system.
Thanks for the quick response. Matt.
Installed a wood-burning stove, with a fan above to move the hot air around the very open-concept vaulted-ceiling home (a bonus for heat propagation). Its awesome to wake up, get out of bed and your feet are on warm floors. February 21, 2014, 1:06 am. The staples go around the outside of the pipe (not through it) and then adhere to the surface. Bonita Springs, FL34135 This domain has been purchased and parked by a customer of Loopia. 3 Your capital costs seem modest.
Julien, I wasnt sure if the DWHR would be worth it, but recently did the first measuring on the unit. It all works surprisingly well, which is why this method of heating is surprisingly popular.
I was thinking of getting another one of these great tankless heaters and installing it in another house (maybe my current house), for a simple article how to install a tankless water heater.
February 19, 2014, 10:51 am. You might like knowing about Solar Roadways, if you don't already - http://www.solarroadways.com/.
Under the wood floor, I expect to see shorter lags.. but like you, I also have a fun woodstove for instant heat blasts. February 19, 2014, 8:32 am. February 19, 2014, 11:20 am. You *think* that this cold water will flow to the outlet.
I bought a spare pump just in case of an emergency, and the only other component that can wear out is the water heater which I made sure is easily accessible.
1 If you run fresh water through the boiler, what stops it, the pump or anything else in the system corroding? Check out cansolair.com. the 2nd floor) by circulating year round (if possible). Complaints and insults generally wont make the cut here, but by all means write them on your own blog!
The blower sat on top of a moldy mildewed wood plenum box, that, upon tearing the system out, I found a dried up rat carcass in the bottom of.
You have an awesome off-the-grid system, sounds like!
Good luck in completing the project. This drove me batty in our radiant heat system. Neither home inspectors nor realtors spend a week in a house in the dead of a cool, damp December so these types of issues rarely get disclosed during the house buying process.
Useful when you probably have a mix of materials, including ferrous, copper & aluminium in the system.
This is likely tens of minutes long due to the slow conduction of heat through PEX and wood. Hey Mr. MM. But the water will flow where it wants to. Added a sun room to our homes south-facing wall for heat capture in the winter. Simple-to-install systems, flawless performance and enhanced IEQ.
I love radiant heat, but I think Ill be ok with this particular forced air heat. I import and sell mini split AC and at a recent trade show there was Heat Pump Hot water set ups that would probably be a lot more efficient at heating the water than the rheem tankless unit.
February 20, 2014, 3:08 pm. I added 66 welded wire fabric (WWF) aka concrete reinforcement wire and used that to tie down the pipe.
but I can explain my reasoning for that if desired in another comment. Heating with hot water is relatively common in the UK. There is no noise other than the quiet hum of the little pump and the usual water heater sounds. Now that I'm retired, I only turn it on when we get a freezing rain that leaves an ice coating on the driveway. On summer nights, the temperatures drop below 60F, so you run a large fan blowing out the days heat to cool everything down and begin the cycle anew. I think you would get a kick out of it, after reading a couple of your blogs its a little scary how we think alike! No leaks, ever. Bugs are bad (esp. Custom Supply Piping Diagram per Manifold and/or Heat Source. George
February 28, 2014, 7:43 pm.
To answer your question, yes the perimeter is the biggest heat-loss so that's why they recommend starting from the outside and working in, but you have an intriguing idea. You keep the windows closed during the 90F days and the interior stays cool.
(ii) Add an electric heater, so there is a back up in case the main boiler needs attention. Question in the UK you can get a gas fired device (Combi boiler) which will produce instant hot water for washing etc, and also happily drive a separate circuit for running hot water around your heating system the heating is controlled using normal thermostats and valves etc and it can be driving radiators or underfloor pipes. Is there a good reason not to do this? Heat from the panels and boiler go directly into the floor without going through a heat exchanger.
This will allow you to tune the flow in the loops. Or maybe built it with one of those old iron antique radiators in one room just for show and an access point.
Its right in the middle of your large living space. Spend the extra $7 for check valves and youll save yourself a lot of hair-pulling-out.
2 If you then have an indirect hot water storage cylinder, it has a couple of advantages: So during a large master bath remodel, we put in an electric system. I obtained a design for the entire system from Supply House (aka PexSupply.com) where I also bought the components. I also wonder if you couldnt run cold water through the system as a cooling mechanism when it was hot. You say (perhaps), but I have thermostats! so the full loop you show on your drawing should return to the manifold on the far right side. The guys who know how to do that showed up and poured our 4 inch slab. But it is good to note. Using PEX under the floor makes the installation much simpler than copper (where youd need to solder elbows every time you turn a corner). /shop/heating-system-supply-piping-diagram-19353. If you opt for one, be prepared to kiss efficiency good-bye. Ill not go into a lot of detail now, (because Im already a giant wall of text!) If you can see the numbers on the gauges in the photo, the water going out is about 100 degrees and the water coming back is about 80 degrees. (Or pushing, depending on which side you have your pump on.
Im going to do a little theory work (which you might already know) first and follow it up with a few recommendations (things I would certainly do) and a few ideas (things you might do or might do if the original design gives you trouble). I love that youre going with hydronic heat. They will cycle the loop on and off as needed! surely that causes all sorts of problems!
Not something that is easily, and inexpensively done, as an afterthought.
Probably best to go for an indirect system.
It may extend the life of our roof as well, by getting the built-up daytime heat out.
That said Im not specifically an expert in radiant floor heating, so in practice some of these items may not be problems or concerns. Yes, and the photos in Step 7 show the two bathroom areas.
The same contraption came in handy later when I wired the house. Why not buy two tank water heaters for the price of the tankless? The inside of the house feels like a nice day all winter long, staying at a consistent 68, our chosen setting. The boiler youve selected has a minimum heat input of 11,000 BTU/h. I also installed my own system and congratulate you on a neat system. Jason Natael So I bet it will be pretty easy to balance everything out. Great write up MMM. 4 years ago, Do you find one side of each zone is warmer the the other with hotter water coming in and slowly cooling as it flows thru the system.
February 21, 2014, 6:09 am. MMM, It works, but it is not elegant: they make noise, waste a surprising amount of interior space with ducts and chases, and are a hassle to install or upgrade.
The diagrams display connections of major components in your heating system as well as locations for critical valves, gauges etc. 5404 Hoover Blvd Ste 14 Its probably too late for gypcrete, but I highly recommend it. The heating demands for your home will be far greater than heating demands for potable water, so Id manage efficiency there first by eliminating a heat exchanger, and use the tankless heater for showers and such. Uponor has been providing reliable radiant floor heating systems longer than any other company in North America. I just did not see it.
The system that I have wanted to install would be for my basement wood floors only (3 above the floor of my sub-basement). February 18, 2014, 10:32 am. It gets worse if/when you discover that one pump isnt enough and you add another pump.
markincolo You can determine the needs in advance (I now realize) by calculating the feet of head. Any body can rip off a roof and replace it or design and install a radiant heat system in a few hours. Have you ever walked past a large brick building long after the sun goes down, and felt warmth all over your body even without touching the wall? Mr. Money Mustache I was asked to provide a floor plan along with my intended insulation values for the floor, wall, and ceilings. An efficiency upgrade to this system:I also purchased two boxes of aluminum heat reflector plates from Amazon which should improve heat transfer and efficiency slightly.
It would save energy because it's on-demand and not heating water that isn't being used. March 7, 2014, 8:31 am. This system is now up and running and you can read the results in the update article here: The Radiant Heat Experiment Did it Work?
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