analog
Member
I'm in the process of building a 24'x42' detached shop. I finally got my electrical rough-in inspection passed and have started on insulation. The plan for heat was always in-floor radiant and up until recently I was undecided on the boiler setup. We put 1/2" pex tubes in the slab.
I don't have natural gas at our house, so electric was my choice.
After a bunch of research, I found the NextGen boiler (http://www.nextgenboiler.com/) which appeared to be just what I was after. Simple setup with a minimal of plumbing required. It has the boiler, expansion tank, pump and controller all built into the unit with just electrical connections and in/out plumbing to connect to the pex manifold.
I installed it and fired it last weekend and thought I'd post here the results as well as use this thread to update on how it is working. Here is a picture of the unit as it is currently installed, with a very low-tech "thermostat" (just two wires connected) until I get my smarthome system running.
Having never installed a radiant system before, I cannot compare the difficulty of this to a fully manual setup. The NextGen was very simple. The installation manual was lacking in details, but for the most part it seemed intuitive what I needed to do. I left two ports in my connection for temp/pressure gauges if I want them in the future. The control panel built in has temp/pressure already.
Once everything was plumbed and installed, the hardest part of the whole project was actually getting the thing up and running. The manual suggested I use distilled water, so I was unclear how to get 10 gallons of distilled water purchased at the grocery store into the system. I had an old basement sump pump which I put into 5-gallon bucket, filled it with the distilled water and made a custom hose with female on each end to connect to the drain valve. This pumped the water in just fine, but wasn't capable of pressurizing the system beyond about 7psi. The manual said 7 psi was the minimum for it to even turn on, and suggested 12-15 psi. So, I dragged a hose out from the house and use it to put the last bit in and get up to 15 psi which also aided in getting the last of the air out through the auto-bleed valve at the top of the boiler.
I did have one problem upon initial turn on, and that is the pump was seized. The date plate showed a build in 2015, so this thing has been sitting on a shelf for a while, and the pump had seized. Upon manually rotating it back and forth, I was able to get it to break loose and it seems no worse for wear.
I'm very happy that it is functioning as expected and the temp probe I have down in the slab is reporting around 72* after a good 48 hours of operation. Until I have my insulation done, I have the output temp set at the lowest (85*). So far so good with this unit and I'll be happy to provide an update as I use it and work through dialing it in.
I don't have natural gas at our house, so electric was my choice.
After a bunch of research, I found the NextGen boiler (http://www.nextgenboiler.com/) which appeared to be just what I was after. Simple setup with a minimal of plumbing required. It has the boiler, expansion tank, pump and controller all built into the unit with just electrical connections and in/out plumbing to connect to the pex manifold.
I installed it and fired it last weekend and thought I'd post here the results as well as use this thread to update on how it is working. Here is a picture of the unit as it is currently installed, with a very low-tech "thermostat" (just two wires connected) until I get my smarthome system running.
Having never installed a radiant system before, I cannot compare the difficulty of this to a fully manual setup. The NextGen was very simple. The installation manual was lacking in details, but for the most part it seemed intuitive what I needed to do. I left two ports in my connection for temp/pressure gauges if I want them in the future. The control panel built in has temp/pressure already.
Once everything was plumbed and installed, the hardest part of the whole project was actually getting the thing up and running. The manual suggested I use distilled water, so I was unclear how to get 10 gallons of distilled water purchased at the grocery store into the system. I had an old basement sump pump which I put into 5-gallon bucket, filled it with the distilled water and made a custom hose with female on each end to connect to the drain valve. This pumped the water in just fine, but wasn't capable of pressurizing the system beyond about 7psi. The manual said 7 psi was the minimum for it to even turn on, and suggested 12-15 psi. So, I dragged a hose out from the house and use it to put the last bit in and get up to 15 psi which also aided in getting the last of the air out through the auto-bleed valve at the top of the boiler.
I did have one problem upon initial turn on, and that is the pump was seized. The date plate showed a build in 2015, so this thing has been sitting on a shelf for a while, and the pump had seized. Upon manually rotating it back and forth, I was able to get it to break loose and it seems no worse for wear.
I'm very happy that it is functioning as expected and the temp probe I have down in the slab is reporting around 72* after a good 48 hours of operation. Until I have my insulation done, I have the output temp set at the lowest (85*). So far so good with this unit and I'll be happy to provide an update as I use it and work through dialing it in.
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