Installing the Radiant Floor components
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- Опубликовано: 27 ноя 2022
- Today we are installing the main components of the radiant heated floors.
Specifically, we will be installing:
- 8 zone manifold,
- Water pump
- Y-strainer
- Air scoop
- Expansion tank
- Float air hy-vent
- 1 zone switching relay
- Temperature and pressure gauges
The entire system will be connected to a 50 gallon gas water heater using 3/4 inch PEX pipes.
In the video, we discuss the different components of the radiant heated floors, the flow of water in the closed loop system, and the lessons learned during the install.
I hope you find the video useful. 
Хобби
Man amazing job. This is by far the best video I have watched. It's clear as day. You explained everything no cut scenes skipping things. Awesome awesome.
Thanks William! I am glad I could help.
Well Done. Thank you.
Good job of explaining all the components...How the system works, etc...
I've watched dozens of videos and found yours to be very clear and easy to understand!
Just had to share that...
Thank you Frank. I am glad I could help :-)
Beautifl system!
I have a similar system with one zone and 4 loops.50-gallonn power vent water heater. I added a 24-hour timer so that the pump has power a half hour out of every hour. This addition lessesens the stress on the water heater. It also makes sure that the water heater does not run continuously as the water would continue to lower in temp.
I am heating a 1,000 sq ft shop with an 8x18 door. I keep it at 65 degrees. Last week, it was 12- 18 degrees below zero, with not a problem. 😀 I do run glycol in this system as well as an insurance policy.
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.
How long was the loop in total? I ask that because I want to understand the power of the pump. How long a loop can one pump run? I have a large floor area where I will need 3,600 feet of pex, which means I will need 12 loops. I wonder if I will need 12 pumps or if I can run all the loops with fewer pumps. Thanks for helping to answer the question.
Great Video! Thank-you. Quick clarification! I understood from the video that at the start, the incoming hot water was going into the wrong manifold, is that correct? In the final installed system, the hot water is shown going into the opposite manifold (the one with the non-white cap), which seems like a mistake. Can you please confirm if my understanding is correct?
We modeled our radiant floor system off of your video and it’s working beautifully! Our next step is to add the thermostat that controls the pump. How did you know what switch relay to get and how to wire it to your thermostat?
Nice, how did you size your pump?
Good install very easy to understand, but if your not using O2 barrier pex then the pipe is allowing air through the piping. Not a problem however if you used cast iron pump and not stainless the pump and air scoop will rust out over time sorry didn’t see all the others saying the same thing before I posted. 👍👍
Good point. I will likely change the current pex to the Oxygen barrier pex in the near future to prevent potential issues.
if you you didnt use oxygen barrier tubing on your mechanical room piping. you should add some Fernox, which is a corrosion inhibitor. the oxygen will seep through the regular pex, and prematurely eat away any ferrous metals like your circulators. even if you did use oxygen barrier pex. fernox or any corrosion inhibitor, and certain propylene glycols will have inhibiotrs as well as antiburst/freeze
I will likely swap the current pex to the Oxygen barrier pex in the near future to prevent potential issues. Cheers!
Yes second that good video.
You do not want to push your flow into the expansion tank. The pump should be right after the tank. Here is an excellent explanation of why... ruclips.net/video/Zr3OX5Frwus/видео.html
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.
I have a question. When you turn the thermostat up, do you hear the pump cut in? What may be the issue if you don't hear the pump cut in. Thanks for the great video.
I'd be tempted to build a protective cage around the orange floor pipes since they would not be easy to replace if damaged for whatever reason, if something heavy bumps into them hard.
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.
Enjoyed the detailed walk through. Do you have a rough estimate on price? I’ve looked at pre built systems and they are outrageous. But I’d like to build my own. Just curious if you had a price breakdown?
Thanks
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.
At 1:50 you said the water would come out of the manifold at the regulators. At 2:10 you mentioned your pump pulling water out of the manifold with the regulators in it. Between 4:36 and 5:02 you swapped the manifold positions. So my question is.....does the manifold with the regulators get incoming hot water?
Great video. With only a 10 degree drop in return water temp...shouldn't the flow rate be reduced to allow a more complete heat dissipation, or am I missing something. Sounds like the system needs a timer on that pump to regulate the time the heated water is allowed to do its job. Or is the concrete such a poor conductor that it requires the maximum heat possible just to maintain the desired temp. Lots to consider.
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)
Could you operate this same setup with 2 50 gallon electric heaters?
Hi Wesley, yes, you can use electric or gas, tank or tankless.
Also how many feet of pex total is this system operating? How many sq ft is size of floor the system is heating?
I can't say for sure since the pex pipes were already installed when we moved into the house.
your in and out water temps may be off since the gauges are not in the water flow streams. might want to keep that in mind
Fair point. Cheers.
Is that black iron going into a shark bite?
Are you in the USA. Great video!Did you buy a kit or design it?
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
this is the only video on internet explained diy system. thank you very much
pieces switch sensor and thermostat, trying amazon..no idea: for my house next year 4" concrete electric boiler..no idea how to configure actuators wired up to open close??? what? 4 long sensor from each concrete zone hooked up to a switch box capable of connected to 4 different thermostats? what kind of thermostat? maybe they sell switch relays with 4 thermostats in and somehow wire each actuator to each thermostat and not the switch relay? then thermostat would open or close actuator. no matter what its always just one switch and 1 pump going on or off.??? it can't be that difficult. and WHAT ABOUT EXACT FITTINGS BETWEEN EACH COMPONENT YOU SHOWED??? IS it 3/4" pex or 1"? because the amazon boiler air scoop says 3/4" FIP. your video looks like 1" pex on the wall??? please list the exact connection pieces between each device. thanks
So do you only fill up the system once then it keeps recycling? Kinda like radiator heating?
yes
How to know you have enough water in the system?
Is that black iron?
And why do you use a gas water heater instead of a boiler, it's also more convenient and can be controlled via the Internet, and more compact.
Noticed the water supply pipe to the manifold way too small.
Do you actually have 8 zones or do you mean 8 loops?
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.
You should have really tight the water heaters manifold style not in series one will always harder than the other
The huge problem with this is radiant floors in concrete take several days to heat up and cool down so your thermostat will make your house act like a wave up and down. This is why real radiant heater boilers stay steady and even have wifi to the weather forecast and adjust days in advance. Its best to use a tankless water heater that you can adjust to keep it steady.
sorry I cant hear you !