If you only have a handful of metal fittings you may as well splurge and use stainless steel ones instead of galvanized. Also your fill and vent line should have caps in case some fool opens the valves
IMHO: IF YOUR "ROOM THERMOSTAT" WOULD SIMPLY TURN ON THE CIRCULATING PUMP,... THEN YOU COULD INSTALL A "FLOW SWITCH" TO THEN APPLY THE INPUT SIGNAL TO THE WATER HEATER(S), SO THAT THEY WOULD THEN FIRE UP, AND START HEATING UP THE WATER-GLYCOL, AND CARRY THE HEAT TO THE FLOORS WHER IT IS NEEDED, TO HEAT THE HOUSE. WHEN THE ROOM TEMPERATURE REACHES THE DESIRED "SET-POINT" THE ROOM THERMOSTAT WOULD ALLOW THE CIRCULATING PUMP TO TURN OFF, (AFTER BEING "HELD "ON", BY A TIME-DELAY RELAY... SET TO ALLOW THE CIRCULATING PUMP TO CONTINUE TO RUN, AS LONG AS THERE WAS ADEQUATE HEAT IN THE TANK(S)... ... THE FLOW SWITCH WOULD IMMEDIATELY TURN ON THE HEATER(S) "ON", WHEN HEAT IS NEEDED,... AND, A SET OF "AUXILLIARY CONTACTS" COULD INTERRUPT THE HEATER "ON/RUN" SIGNAL", AS SOON AS THE ROOM THERMOSTAT IS "SATISFIED".... THUS STOPPING THE CONTINUED HEATING, WHILE STILL ALLOWING THE CIRCULATING PUMP TO CONTINUE FLOW OF THE DECREASINGLY HOT WATER-GLYCOL. SUCH A CONTROL SYSTEM COULD BE WIRED VERY SIMPLY. JUST HAVE ANY GOOD ELECTRICIAN DRAW UP THE MINIMAL CONTROL CIRCUIT.
WOW!!!! THANKS FOR THIS GREAT INFO, AND EXPLANATION!!.. I HAVE A SMALLER HOUSE, (IT'S ONLY ABOUT 864 SQ. FT.) I WANT TO INSTALL A SIMILAR "SIMPLE" SYSTEM, USING A "TWIN" HOT WATER TANK SYSTEM (ONE TANK (OR TANKLESS HEATER?), USING NATURAL GAS, THE ADDITIONAL "BACK-UP" HEATER WILL BE ELECTRIC ( SO THAT IT CAN BE HEATED FROM POWER FROM A "BACK-UP" GENERATOR, OR, COMED., IF NECESSARY.
No, baseboard slant-fin heat requires 160-180 degrees. You need to have a boiler that can get those water temperatures. A standard hot water heater will not suffice.
@@joegottgott3213 You need to understand how antifreeze works. The more antifreeze you have the lower the protection. Buy something like a Antifreeze/Coolant Tester at your autoparts store for 5 to 10 dollars and a jug of antifreeze. Take one cup of antifreeze and test it, then add 1 cup. Then test it again and see how the protection goes from -40 to say -20. This is a 1:1 ratio. The more antifreeze you have the higher the protection.
Your average boiler is set at 180 degrees Fahrenheit, unfortunately the highest a residential water heater gets is 160 degrees Fahrenheit IF no one is taking a shower or washing clothes. A residential water heater can and WILL work for radiant heat but during CRUNCH hot water time's like when a family is showering or washing clothes you will not get heat.
Dedicated heater for one and tempature has nothing really to do with it. BTU ratings have more to do with it than anything. For example if you had a 100k btu heater it would heat up twice as fast. 200k btu heater 4 times faster and so on. You can use a electric water heaters as well. There are some really nice water heaters out there that are pretty good. Look for ones with higher kwh ratings as they will have the highest btus. For example a 40g 4kwh water heater is only 400 dollars. If you need more heat then add another one in line. Its far cheaper than a boiler and cheaper than a higher rated water heater. Even the cheapest set ups are going to be super easy. The pipe and fittings are really super cheap if you look hard enough. All you need is a recirculate pump which can be had for 100 dollars, water heater 400, thermostat plug in switch 50 (plug the pump in to it and it turns on and off when it hits the temp), pex 1000 feet 250, fittings 250. For a bit over a grand you can install radiant heat in to your slab. Add tax and adjustment for location and better stuff you could be in the whole system for less than 2500 dollars.
Its a closed loop system. We have hard water here. I use only water. My boiler heater and parts are 60 years old. Only had to replace the TACO and In Flow valve once in all this time.
@@JohnODonovan1 Never turn thermostat lower than 55-60 so it can never freeze. and yes it is tap water in a closed loop system so the hardness is not a problem.
You hit on a lot of points to this system... I honestly think your video is the most sensical one with information and basic workings of your system..... I don't have a heater, last winter it got to 22F in the house. Which we're from the city, we're used to a nice warm 70s in the winter... :O I'm trying to look at all what is there for a material list... 4 shut of valves, pressure meter, air separator, cold/hot manifolds, thermostat unit, water heater, antifreeze and some pex pipe with various elbows.
I bought this water heater ru-vid.comUgkx8G49mV71sAzUl9shXyLW-r3XgHH9EVh1 for use in my bus conversion. I installed it under my kitchen sink and it is fed by a high efficiency on-demand LP water heater. It is both a backup hot water source as well as a water saving device since we have hot water on demand rather than having to wait for the gas on demand water heater to finish its ignition cycle. I decided on this water heater due to the fact that it only draws 1300watts when it's ON instead of the 1500 watts that most Water heaters this size draw. In an RV a couple hundred watts can be a big deal. With very low standby losses, I don't have to worry about excessive power consumption. When propane is not available for our gas water heater, in conjunction with our low flow shower head there is enough hot water available to shower, albeit we won't be taking "hotel showers." Also very happy with the recovery rate of this water heater. Granted, it is quite small, but it does exactly what we need it to do.
Hot water heater is a stupid solution, Low efficency, voided warranty and you only saved a few hundred dollars plus takes up three times the floor space as a small wall mounted boiler. Amature. Hot water storage tank not designed to condense on system cold start thats why it will fail. Antifreeze mixed to proper ratio very good. Distiled water, money wasted that should have been spent on a pro. Heated water in a sealed system reaches a neutral Ph in a day or two of operation. Pump is mounted in the wrong orientation, voided waranty and the video being three years old this is why your pump impeller has allready or will soon fail. All you had to do is read the directions for that. Lack of islolation for the individual zones, cheap lazy caused your own headach. Now lets look at why your dangerous as well as cheap, First minor infraction no drip leg on your gas valve. generally only fly by nites and amatures use flex lines at all let alone three footers, But your lack off condesate trap will get your gas shut off until a pro fixes the problem. Why? Now for the problem that hill kill everyone in your home because you thought that you would save a grand, No make up water supply. Thats ok but- No low water cut off (LWCO) mounted at the TP valve on the tank. Whats going to happen is when you have a leak or a rupture (probably caused by your gas valve sticking open fron the lack of a condesate trap) the cold water dip tube in the tank is going to syphone your storage tank down to where it's nearly empty, then whats left will flash to steam and literally melt the paint and drywall off of your room. Now here where dumb and cheap comes back to save the day. your going to hook your hose up and flash water into a hot system wich will explode and through darwinisim get rid of you but unfortianatly kill everyone in the adjacent rooms as well that should have been rid of your tight wad ass years ago.
@@busimagen I have been doing this work on a daily basis for right around 27 years now. 13 years successfully operating my own big show. Don't think I have not used domestic water heaters for this application, of all types and configurations. Even the tank heaters that are designed to add a little bit of heating are usually still a bad choice for there short life span. So when someone starts explaining things to me, with my education and experience. I can very quickly understand that they are grossly misinformed by an idiot, or possibly just just the idiot that's doing the misinforming? There are many ways to skin a cat. But most techniques get blood and shit all over the place. I don't know where you came up with your terminology and "cold shock" but I think the factor your blabbing about is what the pros call Delta T. The Delta T in any given system needs to be delt with even with using a tank for storage or for your source. Or if the heart of your system is a million BTU gasifier coal boiler. The Delta T needs to be consistent to avoid the effects of condensation, radical pressure variations, strange and annoying noises. But like I said many different options to control this. From a simple manifold with hand valves, to complex thermostatically controlled mixing pumps and all the tempering and mixing devices in between. Simple reply would be like I already said, domestic water heaters are rarely almost never the best solution for a hydronic radiant system. For longevity, safety, warranty, footprint and comfort there is always many better options. Like grandma used to say if you are flapping your gums just to show everyone how much wind you can make? Probably best that you just shut your pie hole.
@@timbrod2183 From the film Blazing Saddles: "Now who can argue with that? I think we're all indebted to Gabby Johnson for clearly stating what needed to be said. I'm particularly glad that these lovely children were here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age."
I build a hydronic floor heating system for 900 sq ft living space , I also need the GE hot water tank for the kitchen and bathroom. It is 11 years old and work perfect. The hot water tank ( 60 gallons ) get maintained regularly and have a 12 years guaranteed live, but by the looks of it ,it will last longer. Now I build a new home 2 floors with 4 bath rooms and heat it with a Rheem retex 06 electric tankless water heater.and in each floor is 1100 lin feet 1/2 pex line. Each floor is 3” ( 7.5 cm ) thick. The wals are 2x8 thick insulation and the ceiling of the top floor is R 63. Total water amount in each floor is approx 45 liters of water and it is a closed system. For the bathrooms and kitchen etc I have a natural gas Rheem on demand water heater. Electric is better for the environment than any thing else. I really do not know the cost per season because I have not used for a long time , we started the system the end of Sept 2022 and had set the temp 27 Celsius in the floor and the temperature in the home is 23 Celsius. At night we do not set it lower. We love it.
Excellent commentary. I love it when you say concrete. So many people say cement and and much rather walk on concrete then cement. Great job! I put two or three hot water systems in like that wood fired oil fired wood oil combo they talk about green energy. Should be a law and a new home in the cold zone of the United States should have radiant for heat. Save so many dollars.
You need to rotate your pump 90 degree in the horizontal plane. Consult the manufacturer's instructions. It will fail prematurely if you don't. I have nine of them in my home, one for each of my seven radiant zones, one for my Burnham radiant boiler and one for the domestic hot water return line. My pump for the domestic hot water was originally installed the same as yours and it failed prematurely. You have a great heating system. I originally wanted to use hot water tanks for mine as they are more suited to radiant floors then boiler units, but the BTU calculation for my home was too high. I heat 4800 square foot of living space and a 1000 square attached garage. I believe my 110,000 BTU calculation was too high. In twenty years, I have never seen all seven zones calling for heat at the same time, not even during last week's blizzard.
I would love to see your set up. We have a bunch of zones and I'm trying to figure everything out myself. We have about that size on one floor, then a work floor with another bunch of sq footage, but most wont need heated much. Im looking at hybrid heat pump water heater. Anyway, Id love love to see your set up
Ofcorse it’s a pain to get air out you have no purge set up on return 🤦🏻♂️ and that’s really just the start of things wrong/missing but if you got it to work then it works lol
Have a run of tubing higher than the rest with a bleeder valve on top. Stop the flow and come v=back later and open bleeder until water runs out and close it. Repeat til no air comes out. Similar to bleeding brakes but no pedal to push, air will rise.
Nice job for helping the dying crowd. I'd like to point out a few things. The boiler, or water heater in this case, should be before the pump to properly vent the tank which is at the lowest pressure drop point in the system. Hydronic pumps are engineered for much higher water tends than your 120 degree supply. There would be a vent fitting such as the air scoop you have after the heater. The tubing used in a radiant system MUST be cross linked polyethylene with an oxygen barrier if any components in the system are ferrous metal, even with anti-freeze which breaks down over time and must be replaced. Thanks for posting.
So if antifreeze were run in the system, would you even need the anode? If not, it seems like it would be great port to install a pressure gauge and/or second relief valve. The reason I ask is that I currently have this setup in my home for a radiant system and the installer used the top anode port for this purpose. The tank has a mfg date of 1994 on it and just gave up last winter. It had been "repurposed" for radiant around 2007 at which point the anode had been removed. I should also add that regular water was only used in the closed system, along with a fresh water check-valve to make sure it always had water.
I used to maintain the temperature on 70 in last January with this system. Will anyone please tell me how the electric consumption is 194 usd for only 14 days? is there any problem in the system? As I live in a private apartment in CT.
