Radiant Heating

How should I heat my garage and house?

by Adam Hadlock • March 27, 2012 • 2 Comments

Starting a new post, based on a message I got from one of my youtube friends.

Good morning Sir,

I am unsure of your mechanical background, but am impressed with your build. I just sat and watched your latest videos for the better half of an hour. Taking the time to video is always time consuming, which is why I usually opt not to record any of my work until its time for photos.

On to the nature of this message, I am a hydronics engineer and contractor. I see you embedded tubing in your concrete and used the staple up method for the second and first floors.
All I can advise is that you do not use an on demand water heater or junk condensing boiler. Take it from someone in the field, do it once, do it right, and you will be very happy. Also, if I recall from the video, you are on propane. Have the boiler properly set up with a combustion analyzer to ensure it is firing correctly! That will save you fuel, and save you future head aches. Lastly, most manufactures do not warranty units bought online, so buy from a reputable supply house.
Any questions, feel free to ask.

Wow! Thanks! It’s so nice to get real people talking about my garage! :) wondering if it would be ok, to have this conversation on my website? we can comment on a new post.

For now, I’ll reply.

So yes, I installed pex tubing all over the place. Mainly because it seemed easier than doing it later around all my stuff. I probably will use the tubes. I definitely won’t be using propane. :) partly because I want to get away from propane. But also because I DID use an on demand hot water heater to heat my house. All radiant tubes, a concrete over pour in the basement and staple up for the second floor. I will say it’s heated the house just fine for 3 years. I’m not arguing with you about whether it’s a good idea or not, I wouldn’t do it again. But I’d be curious as to the reasons why not. Ooh, can I take a stab?

The only way it would be “ok” would be if the hot water heater could have all things “perfect” So it’s designed GPM running through it, and it’s most efficient temperature hot water out, probably other factors like outside air temperature (combustion air cause it’s direct vent). The reality is probably that all those things have to be perfect in order for it to achieve it’s rated efficiency say 89% I have a takagi jr. So if those things aren’t perfect the efficiency is lower, possibly way lower, and I’m just burning propane.

That’s my guess anyway. So my solution to this problem is this.

A harman p60 pellet boiler. If you aren’t a pellet fan, i can understand, i wasn’t at first but I’ve thought long and hard about it and I think it’s my solution. Here’s why.

Comparing to Wood boiler which was as I saw it my only other option. Wood boiler is messy inside, and I have to cut and install and pay for a 40ft tall chimney. Wood boiler outside, looses a lot of combustion heat to the outdoors, and losses transfering hot water inside, and the tubing to get hot water underground efficiently is 24 bucks a FOOT, or there abouts. This is why I built my own which you’ll see in a later video, to run in between the garage and the house. Also, can’t leave for a week with a wood boiler, and I’m a curmudgeon so I don’t have any friends to come stoke it.

Pellet boiler, No wood mess, hoppers of infinite size to leave for many days, direct vent so no chimney, more efficient then, even a super gasification boiler.

I want the small boiler so I can heat my house. I’ve heard these boilers are best when they run pretty much all the time, so they aren’t cycling all the time. The 60 is just more than my house requires, so it seems like i could run it all the time, and give the excess heat to the garage on warmer days, and on colder than the “design day” i could give all the heat to the house. (basically give house priority and make the garage and over heat loop)

However, in typing this email, i realized that I think i want to put an addition on my house, which will make it hungier, and I don’t want to have to upsize a boiler later…so i might go for the pb105. anyway, let me know your thoughts on all of it.

And i’ll start this thread over on my website.

http://mygaragebuild.com/

First Floor Radiant Tubing Install

by Adam Hadlock • July 22, 2011 • 6 Comments

One day, while driving, I had a thought about the radiant tubing I was going to be installing in these floors. See, normally, one drills a hole, in the joist and feeds the whole roll through that hole and then through the next until it’s in every joist and then pulls each loop that dangles through the joist cavity to the other end. Well, I didn’t fancy the drilling or pulling aspects and wondered if I could somehow avoid that pain.

My plan, as explained in the video below, was to route the top of the joists and install the tubing before the subfloor. Which I executed and it worked splendidly. I will say it was a pain to have to remember NOT to drive a nail through the tubing. If I did it again here are some guidelines I would use.

Do your layout design beforehand to tell you where to route the holes (which I did)

Mark your joists in one solid line on each end where the routes will be (which I didn’t do)

Your marks will tell you the pipes are X inches from the end of the floor, and you can make a corresponding mark on top of your floor to avoid nailing pipes.

Route a hole 1/4″ larger than your pipe size to let the pipe slide through the hole for adjustment when tacking up

Use staples to hold the pipe into the groove you cut

Tubing

300 feet of Pex Tubing for Radiant Heat

The tubing I used was this.

It was great to work with. Which means it stayed pretty flexible, I didn’t have any kinking issues, and yet still seemed durable. I’ve work with some stuff that kept kinking, or was impossible to bend, so this was a nice change.

Tubing layout is a whole post on it’s own, so I’ll just paraphrase. 1/2″ pex shouldn’t be run over 300 feet. The simple answer is by the time hot water has run through 300 feet of 1/2″ pipe it’s cold. If you have 600 square feet to heat, it has to be done in two 300 foot loops or circuits. In my case I had a 20 x 24 floor so I had 480 sq ft, which ended up being two 240 foot loops. I’ll tie these into a header later which is either a simple 3/4″ pipe with 1/2″ ports off of it, or a fancy one pre-built for being a header, with flow control etc.

How to install radiant heat pex tubing for in slab

by Adam Hadlock • July 1, 2011 • 0 Comments

In the video below, you will see the process to install radiant heat tubes in your concrete slab. Or rather, MY concrete slab. After you fill in stone and sand and drainage piping, normally you just pour concrete. However, if you want radiant heating there are a few steps in between.

I installed some drains in the video, however that is NOT part of radiant flooring, just something nice to have. (the first one is a drain that was an afterthought)

Steps:

Install a vapor barrier
Install Insulation
Install pex tubing

Sure seems simple eh? Well it is, but there are lots of decisions surrounding those things. Read on.

My Garage Build