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Here's a picture of my new place. The radiant system will be heated by (6) 4X10 collectors and backed by 360 gallons of storage. A controller will manage the collection and distribution and allow either solar only or solar with oil backup.

If you have a house with "normal" modern construction and insulation in a non severe area, you probably will have a design heat loss of about 7 BTU/ sq ft, or so. In this case a delivery of about 25 BTU/ sq ft gives reasonable response without being overkill. If you get a boiler that will...

Too bad you fell for the Glowcore scam. I avoided it because the design looked suspect. Sure enough. Back in those days I used miles of polybutalene and still think it was pretty good stuff. Sounds like while you were sitting in meetings trying to tell others what to do, I was designing and...

Installing a brass union between copper pipe and the galvanized ****** on the water heater is the best way to stop galvanic corrosion. This method is also used to connect copper piping to old galvanized piping during re-models. In that case you go from copper to a female adapter to a brass...

You may consider my over 30 years experience in hydronic heating and running a successful company, simply, "gambling with others money" But your response simply points out a very sophomoric method of only relying on a program and not seeing the many other factors that might be involved. Your...

bw, Looks like you have a copper threaded adapter screwed directly to the tank. Be sure the new setup has a brass union if you hard pipe it. Dielectric unions are a poor choice, but still better than directly screwing copper to steel. Flex piping is certainly OK. I usually go rigid from...

Designing strictly by a computer program, with the intent of satisfying a thermostat on the coldest day, is a very non human way of providing humans with the best possible experience. People report to me, over and over, that their radiant heating system is their favorite part of their home...

danski, We're kind of mixing two different systems here. Concentric and room ventilation. I'm sorry you don't really understand what I'm describing, but your theories don't hold much water. Yes, codes do matter and they are based on reality. Broad generalizations about temperature and wind...

Turbo, In your situation, it seems like a good idea to me. Good solid core doors can easily handle the weight and your long term plans call for a more permanent solution. Cool. Do it. It is a big commitment to make a big hole in a wall somewhere that is not permanent or only seasonally...

danski, You say that combustion air setup will never work? If you have a closed mechanical room in the middle of a house with no available air source, it certainly does work. That's why it's in the code as an available method. It supplies combustion and ventilation air (high and low fresh...

I did mine with 2" blue board as shown on page 7, left side. The one with the slab edge insulation vertical and going deep. Mine runs down, I think, 3 feet all the way around. I also always hold the heat back from the edges of any slab at least one foot from the inside of the walls. But I...

I guess you could call it the right stuff. But I don't like insulating under the slab. Around the perimeter is good or just hold the heat back from the sides. I can't see how that stuff can be counted on to support a concrete slab for the life of the house. Where will the heat be "lost" to...

The 85% power vented boilers have a lot of leeway on the venting system. It's the condensing boilers that vent through PVC that are more touchy about intake and exhaust locations. And in those cases they will state in the manual if they require the intake and exhaust to be outside together or...

Radiant floors don't necessarily take many hours to heat up and they are used during the summer because most folks don't like to step on a cold bathroom floor even in the summer. I hear the tired old statement that they must be left on and it takes so many hours to heat up, etc. Not so if...

If you make a closed loop system and you get all the air out before shutting it down and you use barrier PEX, you will not have corrosion problems. But you might get a stuck circulator if it sits for a year or so. Closed loop does not need propylene glycol for corrosion control. That's used...

Balancing valves are very important, flow meters are just fun to watch, but not needed. Balancing valves do two main things. They help with startup to flush air out of each line individually and they help with balance later. Unless each loop is the same length, they will flow at different...

I think under slab insulation is a waste of money in most cases and that one is particularly suspect because of the claims they make.

I use far more 1/2" PEX than others and the only other size I use is 3/4". Just to be clear, the 1/2" PEX measures 5/8" OD and the 3/4" measures 7/8". A couple of the considerations are the durability during the pour and the number of loops. Try to keep your 1/2" loops at no more than 300'...

I'm with you. I consider heat loss through the underside of a slab to be a non-issue, but structural integrity must be the beast we can do, always. I wouldn't bet the integrity of a slab on any of the insulation types I've seen. But with a lot of rebar and some square support areas left...

You'll have to confirm how it's done in your area, but in my new house I'm running a 1" galvanized iron pipe inside a 2 1/2" schedule 80 PVC pipe. The schedule 80 PVC is used so I can compact and drive my tractor over it during construction. In most cases Schedule 40 would be fine. Where it...