Installing the Radiant Floor components 

Thanks William! I am glad I could help.

Thank you Frank. I am glad I could help :-)

Thanks Mark. Agree, these systems are very good and they heat really well. I wish all our floors had these. Really comfortable overall.

The timer is for the pump or water heater? There is a bit of confusion as to what you have on a timer. How do you regulate the temperature with in the shop. This is what I understand. You have 1000 square feet with 4 loops of 250 square feet each plumbed in to a 50 gallon water heater. Your pump runs 50% of the time. At this point I have no clue if your water heater is just on like normal and you cycle the pump 50% of the time and it keeps it at around 65f?

@@kameljoe21 " I added a 24-hour timer so that the PUMP has power a half hour out of every hour."

@@bluegorillacookies Still does not explain how he keeps it at 65f all the time. The problem with putting a timer on the pump is that you do not put less stress on the water heater. Using this example if the tempature of the water in the slab is 50f and you run it though the water heater for an hour and bring that water temperature up to 51f. By limiting the water flow and stopping the pump only allows you to heat up 50 gallons of water for 30 mins then push it in to the slab then cycle it for 30 mins and moving that heat around. This does not increase the speed in which you heat the slab up at all. A radiant heat floor works just like any hot water circularizing system found in some high end homes or in commercial settings. All water heaters are set up for this. You have incoming cold water, outgoing hot water and recirculating line. The hot water lines all loop back to the water heater where there is a pump. The pump keeps the water temperature at the setting you have it set. This could be 120f which makes all the water in your system 120f all the time. The water heater shuts down when it reaches the set temperature. When it senses a drop in temp it heats it back up again. The only change from one system to the next is how the water heater shuts off when it reaches the temperature inside the home/room. Really to keep the floor temperature stable you need that pump running the entire time the water heater is on. For example the pump should shut off when the water heater is not on. Other than that there is no reason to have the pump cycle.

@@kameljoe21 I just told you what the guy said in plain English. I'm not an expert by any means, but I imagine he means there's less stress on the water heater because it's not cycling on and off as much as it were if the pump were circulating water all the time. For example, with well water, there is a pressure tank that acts as storage so that when you turn on the faucet, the pump doesn't have to turn on for 2 seconds and then off again. I know a water heater isn't a well pump, but the water heater acts as thermal storage, like a pressure tank is storage of pressurized water. Instead of the water heater on 100% of the time, it could just turn on when the pump is running, and when the pump stops and the tank is back at holding temp, it could chill. The slab also takes time for it to heat up and cool off, so keeping it (around) 65 isn't that hard to imagine. You said, "For example the pump should shut off when the water heater is not on. " But not necessarily. If the water heater has 50 gallons of hot water in it, and the room is dropping in temp, that 50 gallons of stored heat can be used to bring it back up to temp.

I will likely swap the current pex to the Oxygen barrier pex in the near future to prevent potential issues. Cheers!

Good point. I will likely change the current pex to the Oxygen barrier pex in the near future to prevent potential issues.

There are certainly numerous ways to configure the system. In my case, I made sure that the pressure in the expansion tank equals the pressure in the overall system (around 12-15 psi). Plus, given that it is a closed loop system, it does not really matter where the pump is since the water will flow pretty much consistently. In my case the system has been working really well and keeping the entire basement very warm. Cheers.

We just installed a setup nearly identical to this video and got all our parts (not including the pex tubing or water heater) for around $1000. The manifold was a big chunk of that.

That’s a good point. Cheers

This has me thinking about how it will be installed in my build. I am thinking of making a plywood half wall. Like 4 foot wide 1 foot deep. Bring it up about 3 foot. Then do the something similar for the domestic water and returns. This would protect what is going in to the slab and ceiling. Allowing for everything else to be to the left or right.

Fair point. Cheers.

Hi, I am in Canada. I bought the individual parts and created the system myself. Glad you found the video valuable :-)

can you give us an update how the system is doin? thanks ​@@comfyhomecomfyrv

I can't say for sure since the pex pipes were already installed when we moved into the house.

Hi there, the pump does not run continuously. The thermostat (located in a different room) controls the pump. When the temperature drops below the set point, the thermostat calls for heat and the pump starts to push/pull the water through pipes in the floors. The hot water tank also does not run continuously, it turns on only when it senses that the temperature of the water is below the set point.

10 degree drop in temp for infloor heat is ideal.

Its actually less heat dissipation the slower the water goes. Faster flow equals more heat.

@@suspicionofdeceit People feel better when they feel heat. Yet if you were to put temp gauges on them and cycle the slab water first with no additional heat you would see that it is 70f and when you add heat the return water will slowly increase as the slab warms up coming back as 70.1 70.2 and so on till it reaches the set room temp ( numbers are made up yet serve a point to future readers)

Hi Wesley, yes, you can use electric or gas, tank or tankless.

yes

It means the same thing, 1 zone = 1 loop. In my case, I have 8 loops and hence 8 zones. Cheers

It's one zone really with the one pump and one controller, but that manifold has some control too I think. Typically multiple loops from the same manifold make up one zone.

You make a fair point. However, in my case, given that I can manually increase or decrease the hot water flow to 8 different physical areas in my basement directly from the manifold, I consider that my 8 loops of PEX pipes = 8 physical zones.