Installing a hot water boiler The journey. The country town I am building, that is what I now jokingly call it because there are 3 large size buildings has always been deficient in one area for it to be inhabited full time. Each of my 2 houses was in need of a heating system. One house had a wood stove and the other had a wood furnace, which had been fine for now but, as a rental or to live there over longer periods of time, would not be. I had always planned on putting in a boiler and using baseboard heat. The icing on the cake would be an oil fired boiler in the basement that heated both houses and an outside wood boiler that could override the oil fired boiler in the winter. When I built the guesthouse I had run an 8 inch pipe underground between the two houses dreaming of someday running heat piping through it, connecting them with one furnace. Takagi-closed.gif' alt='Hydronic Heating System Antifreeze' title='Hydronic Heating System Antifreeze' />So this was on my mind as I approached the plumbing supply company for a heating design plan. Not many people are interested in taking on the complexity of installing a boiler and heating system, part of the job maybe, but not the whole thing. Back early on I had read in my construction bible, Do It Yourself Housebuilding by George Nash, that most people who build their own houses do not usually install their heating system, but the author said there is no reason why they couldnt, as long as they had experience with other forms of household plumbing. He gave a brief overview of what was necessary. First off, he recommended having a heat loss study done on the dwelling. He said most plumbing contractors do not do this but their plumbing supply company does it for them. The companies will design the overall system for a client based on the type of system he or she wanted, and the amount of heat loss. Hydronic Heating System Antifreeze' title='Hydronic Heating System Antifreeze' />Underfloor heating and cooling is a form of central heating and cooling which achieves indoor climate control for thermal comfort using conduction, radiation and. Active+Solar+Design+Uses+collectors%2C+storage+systems%2C+distribution+devices+such+as+pumps+and+fans%2C+and+control+systems..jpg' alt='Hydronic Heating System Antifreeze Test' title='Hydronic Heating System Antifreeze Test' />The kind of system I wanted was pretty straightforward until a co worker started to put a bug in my ear about going with radiant floor heat. Bill said he had it in his house and loved it. I knew it was great and all the rage but I was at a disadvantage because I didnt construct the house for radiant floor heat to start with. Bill showed me some pictures off the Internet of how to install radiant floor heat over and under existing floors. That got me excited to think it wasnt too late for the guesthouse as the ground floors were not finished and the second floor, floor joists bays were open. Manual De Practicas De Electronica Digital Enrique Mandado Pdf. So I started to think about radiant heat instead of baseboard. Powersuite 2011 more. I didnt see Bill for about a month and when I did we didnt talk about it. I did talk to some local people up in the mountains and was told by one person that I would never get my money back in heat savings to pay for the installation. I started to think of everything I had to do and was concerned about the time and pain of installing all that radiant tubing. So it was decision time, and with all the stress of my birthday party preparations, I took the easy way out. I made up my mind to go back to the original idea and use baseboard heat throughout. I even went so far as to install my first baseboard heater in the new downstairs bathroom I was building because I needed to put the pipes in before I closed up walls. I was working with Bill again in the fall and one day he looks me in the eye and said, So JD, are you putting in the radiant floor heat yet I sheepishly told him I decided to go with baseboard. We break down the various components of hydronic heating system as well as alternative radiant heating methods. Updated The importance of neutralizing condensate produced by high efficiency gas fired appliances. HeatingHelp. com Bright Ideas List 314 31 Tips on How to Apply Antifreeze to a Hydronic Heating System, and How to Maintain it Afterwards During the week of. He lit into me at that point. You have to do it, you will love it, now is the time before you put the floors in and its no big deal. Bill kept after me and showing me things on the Internet and talking about how much his wife and he loved the radiant floor heat. He even called his brother in law, a plumber and made me talk to him. Bill got through to me. It wasnt like I didnt like the idea I just didnt want all the complication. From then on it was full steam ahead with hydronic radiant floor heat. The next part was to get a heat loss study and a plan. It was time to approach the manager of my local plumbing supply company. When I called Luke and told him I wanted to have an oil fired boiler in the basement, radiant heat on the first floor, baseboard heat on the second floor, pipe heat underground to a guest house and have an outdoor wood boiler combination, he was OK with that. Then I told him I wanted to do it all myself. I explained to him that I had done all the other plumbing in the house and bought a lot of products from him. He reluctantly said, OK. I said, I need a heat loss study done and that other supply houses do that and will your company do that for me He said, We have a guy who does that but he is semi retired, only works till noon and is very busy. I said OK, I am not in a hurry now because it is a winter projectto which he snickered out right. I got the message it was probably going to be more than just a winter project. From that point on I started to do research about Hydronic Heating. I combed the Internet for information and found there is not a lot because the work is almost always done by the trade, not the homeowner. In fact you can find derogatory posts from plumbers about people who do not know what they are doing and shouldnt be messing around with it in the first place. One guy mentioned a book by Dan Holohan called Pumping Away and other really cool piping options for hydronic systems. I found it on Amazon and bought it for 2. It was a short, easy to read book that talked about modern hydronic principles, with formulas and simple drawings. It was by no means all the information I needed but just enough information to figure out the direction I needed to go in. A month later I called the plumbing supply place and asked to talk to Charlie, the heat loss guy, and told him of my ambitious plans. Charlie gave me the same reaction as Luke, when I told him I was going to do it myselfsilence. Then I went on to tell Charlie what I wanted to do using what is called primary and secondary piping and use an outside temperature reset controller, things gleaned from Dan Holohans book. Apparently that impressed him enough to want to work with me, even though he made it clear he didnt hold peoples hands and didnt usually work with amateurs. But I must have said the right things because I finally heard his OK. He said he would talk to Luke and we scheduled a time for me to come in with floor plans. A heat loss plan is exactly what it says it is. There are formulas for which you put in the room dimensions, windows and location, ceiling height and the R value of the insulation, things like that. It is best to work off architectural drawings from your house but in my case I didnt have those so I found a free software program from Taco called Flo. Pro Designer. The program allowed me to draw simple floor plans with window and door locations and the other relevant information. Then the software gave me the number of BTUs required to heat a specific room to 7. The latter part is what I wanted Charlie to do but I gave him a printout of the Flo. Pro calculations anyway just for reference. By the way, Flo. Pro came up with usually smaller BTU numbers than Charlie did but they asked me some questions I didnt understand and with open floor plans there is always need for human interpretation. Working radiant floor heat manifold display. I went in to see Charlie and gave him my floor plans created with the Taco,  Flo. Pro Design software.