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The solar is plumbed with copper supply and return. If what gets too hot? Do you mean the house or the solar? The solar heats the 600 gallon storage and that heats the house according to the thermostat. If the tanks get to high limit, the solar drains back and waits. This is how it spends a...

Your design of 1/2" PEX on 12" centers, with three loops of 270' length will be fine for a shop. Remember that 1/2" PEX is actually 5/8" OD. Oxygen barrier tube is now the standard and allows cast iron pumps to be used. A non-toxic corrosion inhibitor is also a good idea to reduce corrosion...

Those first generation Triangle Tube Solo boilers had a known weakness in the studs holding the top on the burner chamber. Looks like it came loose and was able to burn in the case area. I had one that was "exploding", or having "abrupt starts". It was a broken ignitor that allowed an...

Slabs can show up in lots of places, but most people don't park cars on the third floor or in the basement. 1 1/2" gypsum or concrete slabs sit on top of standard wooden subfloors on any level of the house, basement or no basement. Main floor, second floor, third floor. These thin slabs...

I don't doubt that people are not real happy with simple staple up. It's a poor alternative to in-slab. Plus it brings with it a host of other problems related to the construction of the house and the difficult installation. Since the joist bays become typical raceways for cold and hot...

Exactly my point. Changing temperatures, and on and off, causes noise. Not everyone lives in the coldest imaginable climate, with the lowest insulating value in the house, so not everyone has to have the highest possible delivery of heat. I design with 25 BTUs per foot minimum, and it is...

There is no need to heat right up to the door and have a big heat leak. Hold the heat back from the garage door. In houses, I hold the heat back about 12" from the inside of the walls. At the garage door opening, hold the tubing back 24" or so. Then you can run the rebar out into the...

ljdm, Category 1 systems send spent gasses into a vent designed to run at negative pressure. This can be a natural draft or a draft induced system. The draft inducer, does not pressurize the vent pipe, but helps draw the spent gasses through the heat exchanger. Negative pressure relies on...

The underfloor systems with tubing in the joist bays works fine with no "reflector plates". The plate systems are also much more likely to make clicking noises as they warm or cool too. Just run 1/2" PEX tube down and back in each bay, then down and back in the next, etc. Staple or use...

danb35 I wanted a very large slow turning fan in my living room that has a high ceiling, but the cost is also very high. Probably because Big *** is a specialty company and has a reputation for being a cool product. The cost is hard to justify. For a garage/shop the low cost Westinghouse...

Here is the one I have in my living room. Set at 12' high and 7'wide, it is a thing of beauty, but it's probably better for the house than the garage because you could have 30 Westinghouse fans for the price of one of these. Runs at 44 RPM and stirs the air thoroughly, but gently. No wind...

These are a similar to the Westinghouse industrial design I recommended. Simple design with metal blades.

Mine is set at about 15' high in the garage. There is no motor noise. If I run it on the lowest setting I can barely detect a breeze from it, but it's enough to send the stratified hot air down to the floor. It's slow enough that I can watch the blades go around and is the speed I run it...

When you say "underfloor', I guess you mean joist bay heating beneath the floor. It's a difficult way to do radiant and doesn't work as well as in-slab radiant. But it does work and is comfortable.

My radiant floor heat and my solar system have never been connected to the house water supply system. They are both designed to be closed loop with no makeup water connection and start out at atmospheric pressure when cold. Neither one uses a diaphragm expansion tank. This is a good plan...

yeldogt, It's just a different way of doing it. Set and forget is what we are trying to avoid because of the reasons I've stated and the classic complaints I've heard for many years from homeowners. It's less efficient and less comfortable. A constant temperature is not as comfortable, or...

I never use an outdoor reset. It's only needed if you set the boiler delivery temperature so low it can't heat the house in cold weather. There is no good reason to do that unless you want a constant circulating system. That theory of operation is both less comfortable and less efficient...

These Westinghouse industrial ceiling fans are incredibly good, they will run almost forever and are very efficient and quiet. They are not built to be fancy, but they are placed in big buildings and just turned on forever. They come in white or brushed nickel. I paid $49. for mine and I...

The most affective heat shield I've ever found was galvanized corrugated roofing. Cheap too, at Home Depot. It seems to stay at room temperature even close to the stove. Next, put a fan near the ceiling. A paddle fan is OK, or an industrial metal fan as used in big box stores. They are built...

I generally use 1/2" PEX (5/8" OD). But in my place I used 3/4". This is 7/8" OD. The benefits are you can use longer loop lengths and the tube wall is much thicker, so it's much stronger to hold up during the pour. My grid is #3 bar on 12' centers, both directions. Slab is minimum 6" thick...