In-floor heat

[scrapart]

OK so this is my setup I have a blow off valve that goes in place of the funnel. The pex coming in on the left comes from the pump....The valve is there just for another way to control the heat.

1. should the pump be before or after the heater?
2. Im not understanding how to wire the thermostat to the pump?
3. Is there any certain way my pump should hang?
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anthony666
Senior Member

Quote:
Originally Posted by scrapart View Post
1. should the pump be before or after the heater?
2. Im not understanding how to wire the thermostat to the pump?
3. Is there any certain way my pump should hang?
1. after
2. that's a 220v t-stat .. get one for 110v to match the pump
3. it shouldn't 'hang' .. the wiring shouldn't be where it can get wet if the pump leaks and the motor should not be oriented so that it's an air trap

good lord that's ugly sir


scrapart


I know its ugly not going for looks Im going for function its not complete yet.
The T-stat is for 120, 208 or 240 volt

anthony666
Senior Member


use the diagram on the right then, substitute 'pump' for heater

meanwhile, what turns on the wall kettle ?? does it have a flow switch, an internal tstat or maybe a 't t' input ???
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scrapart
Member

Water flow turns on the propane tankless heater... Ok do I hook it to the yellow wire or white wire?
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anthony666


it doesn't matter with those taco pumps, they don't have a L & N like a grundfos
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you need a few more components .. what are you doing about air elimination and thermal expansion ??

scrapart
Member


I have a longer piece of pipe and at top I have a 75psi air valve that goes in place of the funnel. Never thought of a tank for expansion


scrapart
Member

Is there really that much expansion?


scrapart
Member

The guy at Menard's (Home improvement store) said there isent really a need for a tank seeing I have one 150' loop. Just keep an eye on the air valve if I start leaking then I might want to think about a tank.

anthony666
Senior Member

there's a reason your menards guy makes $10 a hour working at a box store .. because he knows **** about hydronics

i'm willing to wager that 75 psi valve is a t&p valve, not an air eliminator, and 75 psi is way too much for a radiant system, 30 psi is gold .. a t&p is a safety valve .. if you get too much temperature (the t in t&p) or pressure (the p) your system becomes a bomb firing scalding water and hunks of boiler about the general vicinity .. a t&p vents water until the desired pressure is achieved .. please change it to a 30 psi valve at your earliest possible opportunity

yes, you need a thermal expansion tank, it helps stop the above t&p explosions

yes, you need an air eliminator .. water is made up of gases, hydrogen and oxygen, plus water gases it managed to absorb along the way as it rushes through the city water supply, or through your well .. as soon as you put it into your system it stops rushing around and starts undissolving the gases and some of it's oxygen .. three things combined cause corrosion; heat, water and air .. we need the water and the heat, so we get rid of the air

scrapart
Member

not connected to a water supply... Im using the antifreeze for in floor heat.

anthony666

you can't use straight anti freeze

dude .. start another thread .. we'll get you back on track

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

If I did not have the cryo-tek straight I might of had problems if my system was running last week and had it mixed and ran out of propane. We were hitting temps of -40 here

 

[anthony666]

Re: Infloor heat

another issue is you're using a propane powered heater with virtually no load .. you only showed one pump, so i'm gonna assume you're running directly from the water heater into your 150' loop .. your return temp is gonna be almost the same as output temp and i doubt that heater can throttle down enough to handle that .. if it can't handle that, bad things happen, like short cycling for example

the way to fix that is to decouple the heater from the load .. you build the load as a independent loop with it's own pump, and the water heater is on its own loop with it's own pump that feeds into the load loop .. the pump in the heater loop will only turn on when the load temp drops

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

Yes the orange pex coming into the pic from the left is coming from the pump into the heater then the pex going straight down goes into the floor I was going to use the valve in the picture to control it.

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

What about installing a radiator like one out of a chevy pickup into the loop this could act as a exp tank also?

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

So if you are correct about temps being the same in as out then my 576 sq ft garage should heat up nicely ?

 

[anthony666]

Re: Infloor heat

What about installing a radiator like one out of a chevy pickup into the loop this could act as a exp tank also?

how ???

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

I have an older rad that has brass tanks I could get reducers and connect the upper hole to the pump then the lower side to the line going to the heater?

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

I could even install a thermal switch to turn a fan on and off?

 

[anthony666]

Re: Infloor heat

brother .. i'm gonna find some basic web pages for you to read and get a handle on all the parts and components, what they do and why we need them .. i don't think what i'm saying is translating well

my bad

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

OK I ll take a look at them.

 

[anthony666]

Re: Infloor heat

check the bottom of the article, there's links to individual components and what they do http://inspectapedia.com/Energy/Radiant_Heat_Use.htm

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

Ok so I get the tank and air purger where do I install it in my system? On the line that comes from the pump?

 

[anthony666]

Re: Infloor heat

the pump goes in the line to the floor, the air purge and tank go between the heater and the pump

you still have to do something about the water heater being too big for the load .. what make & model is it ??

 

[mygarageone]

Re: Infloor heat

I think it's time you hire someone who knows what the H ! There doing.

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

Mygarageone you must be rich! I for one don't have a money tree growing out back.

 

[mygarageone]

Re: Infloor heat

Not rich but I know when to turn work over the a proffesonal. They will save you a lot of time , aggravation , frustration and many times money in the long run.
You don't. Have to hire it all out , just the important stuff.

 

[Highbeam]

Re: Infloor heat

Not rich but I know when to turn work over the a proffesonal. They will save you a lot of time , aggravation , frustration and many times money in the long run.
You don't. Have to hire it all out , just the important stuff.

I agree. Insulating a floor with fiberglass batts for example. That is an extremely unpleasant job and the professional I hired to do it charged me almost the same as materials would have cost to do the whole job and he was awesome.

I'll do my own electrical though.

There is a time to hire work out and sometimes it is to save money, sometimes, to save time, and sometimes when you aren't skilled enough to do the job without losing both money and time.

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

anthony666 I have a AquaStar AQ 125- BLP...

Ok I here ya's about hiring someone but I would rather do it my self so I learn how to do it and if there is an issue with my system I can figure it out my self !

"Example" Im into wheeling (offroading) I had a rig that I put a 350 TBI into a toyota and needed a wiring harness I pulled it out of the Parts truck pulled the harness all apart took out what I didn't need then put it back together and it ran. I was told just to buy one...

 

[mygarageone]

Re: Infloor heat

anthony666 I have a AquaStar AQ 125- BLP...

Ok I here ya's about hiring someone but I would rather do it my self so I learn how to do it and if there is an issue with my system I can figure it out my self !

"Example" Im into wheeling (offroading) I had a rig that I put a 350 TBI into a toyota and needed a wiring harness I pulled it out of the Parts truck pulled the harness all apart took out what I didn't need then put it back together and it ran. I was told just to buy one...

If you really want to learn ask a professional ifyoucan shadow him and help for nothing , you will learn then.

By the. Way I just realized you have your pump in upside down , the motor needs to be in a horizontal position. Not up , not down .

 

[anthony666]

Re: Infloor heat

perfect .. i can put things in wheeling terms .. your propane water heater will not idle low enough if you just make a simple loop with the floor .. it just won't .. you need the water to lose a bunch of heat before it gets back to the boiler, 150 ft loop will not bleed off enough heat

ok .. think about the water heater as an engine .. what happens if the rad in your toyota is the size of a pack of smokes .. is it gonna cool the engine ?? if an engine overheats it blows gaskets, warps the deck and head, cracks the blocks, burns up pistons .. all kinds of bad **** .. you need to match the rad and the engine up pretty close .. does that make sense ?? right now you have too much engine and hardly any rad

the simplest solution is to craigslist it and get a small electric water heater (can't believe i just said that !)

what are you heating that only has 150 feet of pipe in it ?? a good rule of thumb is 1 foot of pipe for 1 square foot of floor .. my garden shed is bigger

 

[rburke65]

Re: Infloor heat

Thanks anthony666. I have the Pex run in my recently built shop, but as of yet, no heat source, but I appreciate your 'lowest common denominator' explanation.

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

So if I add a loop with base board I could add more area to control the temp? I can also control the temp on the front tankless heater . The guy I bought the tankless heater from had this in a 24x24 with 200 ft and he had the temp about half on the unit and it kept his garage at a constant 65*.

 

[anthony666]

Re: Infloor heat

Thanks anthony666

you're welcome

So if I add a loop with base board I could add more area to control the temp? I can also control the temp on the front tankless heater . The guy I bought the tankless heater from had this in a 24x24 with 200 ft and he had the temp about half on the unit and it kept his garage at a constant 65*.

there's a piping strategy you can use to use this water heater, it's called decoupling (decouple).. the easiest way to explain in it to connect the ends of your 150 foot loop with two tees & a pump in between .. then connect a tube with a pump from the 'out' on the boiler to one tee, and return to the boiler from the other tee .. that 2nd pump in the boiler loop is turned on when the temp in the floor loop drops .. the floor loop pump runs off a room thermostat

basically the water heater injects hot water into the floor loop as necessary .. saves a massive amount of fuel and wear and tear on the boiler

 

[anthony666]

Re: Infloor heat

The guy I bought the tankless heater from had this in a 24x24 with 200 ft and he had the temp about half on the unit and it kept his garage at a constant 65*.

whats he using now ?? why did he sell it ???

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

He bought a outdoor wood boiler and has it hooked to his house and garage.

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

LOL thanks for explaining it the way you did! Ok so I add the second pump how is that controlled ? The pic what you are talking about? Ok what you are talking about cant I just control the heat flow with the valve ?

 

[tdkkart]

Re: Infloor heat

So if you are correct about temps being the same in as out then my 576 sq ft garage should heat up nicely ?

If you've only got 150ft of pipe in a 576sq/ft garage you might as well just stop now, hang a natural gas forced air unit and forget your floor heating idea. Your chances of heating the floor with only 150ft of tube is next to zero. As a rough guideline you need a foot of tubing for every sq/ft of floor, or 575+ ft of tubing.

 

[anthony666]

Re: Infloor heat

LOL thanks for explaining it the way you did! Ok so I add the second pump how is that controlled ? The pic what you are talking about? Ok what you are talking about cant I just control the heat flow with the valve ?

sort of, but not quite .. the tees need to oriented differently, it makes a huge difference .. the path of least resistance must be the floor load

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

If you've only got 150ft of pipe in a 576sq/ft garage you might as well just stop now, hang a natural gas forced air unit and forget your floor heating idea. Your chances of heating the floor with only 150ft of tube is next to zero. As a rough guideline you need a foot of tubing for every sq/ft of floor, or 575+ ft of tubing.

Of my outside measurement is 24x24 my wall is 6-1/2 thick I came another 2ft in with my out most loop so Im not wasting my heat to the outside so technically I heading 240.25sqft of slab. Im not looking for it to heat things to 90 Im looking for anything above 32.

I was told that the pex should be 1ft apart with that said if I added any extra to my floor it would be over lapping .

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

sort of, but not quite .. the tees need to oriented differently, it makes a huge difference .. the path of least resistance must be the floor load

So what change the pumps around so the flow goes the other direction? Or just put the top T at the floor then it would be a straight shot? How is the tank pump controlled?

 

[scrapart]

Re: Infloor heat

O with doing the two pumps and T's where does the air valve and tank go ?

 

[mygarageone]

If all you have is 150' of tubing ,your still short . By the way where do you live ? That will be a factor in heating .

 

[scrapart]

Mygarageone about 30mi West of Marquette MI

 

[scrapart]

Yea yea Im short I get that! Ill still complete the system and still give it a try!
I had a hillbilly setup going with two 110v heating elements in a 15gal keg it was changing the temp of the floor but not something youd want to leave alone for long stretches.

 

[mygarageone]

Mygarageone about 30mi West of Marquette MI

Geez , we are practically neighbors. But living West of Mqt makes it even worse with the lack of tubing. Sorry .

 

[anthony666]

like this

sorry it looks scratchy, my stupid phone wouldnt pick up the original picture, had to thicken it up

 

[scrapart]

Ok so the T=stat to the floor pump is set at 32* the liquid cools down then the pump on the tank needs to turn on how do I wire that to come on to reheat the liquid?

 

[anthony666]

you need a thermostat that uses a remote sensor, tape the sensor to the pipe by the floor pump

when the temperature drops in the floor loop the pump on the water heater side fires up and the water heater raises the temp until the load side is happy again

 

[scrapart]

I had a hillbilly setup going with two 110v heating elements in a 15gal keg it was changing the temp of the slab but not something youd want to leave alone for long stretches.

But living West of Mqt makes it even worse with the lack of tubing. Sorry .