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Old 12-05-13, 12:53 AM   #351
AC_Hacker
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"From scratch" is a pretty blurry concept, I think, so I'll continue to think of you as making heat pumps from scratch.
My ulterior motive, with regard to building your own heat pump is to encourage people to actually do it... so to them I say it's just not that hard.

...but to you, I say, "Thanks for the complement."

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Except for three small rooms, our entire home is open all the time, so the heated zone is actually heating about 1700 SF and doing alright, but I hear what you're saying.
michael, I came across an interesting article, discussing, "How Much Insulation Is Enough?"

I think you would be interested in it.

Best,

-AC

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Old 12-05-13, 11:51 PM   #352
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Default PEX installation

Starting the PEX layout today. Hope to finish tomorrow or the weekend and cover it with concrete on Monday or Tuesday. It will be a great relief to get this phase finished with rain on its way.

And thanks, AC, for the article above.





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Old 12-06-13, 12:08 AM   #353
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Starting the PEX layout today. Hope to finish tomorrow or the weekend and cover it with concrete on Monday or Tuesday. It will be a great relief to get this phase finished with rain on its way.

And thanks, AC, for the article above.
Thanks for the great photos, I'm learning a lot from them...

Best,

-AC
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Old 12-06-13, 05:05 AM   #354
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Looks very nice. I noticed the 12" spacing then remembered you were in California so you wouldn't need it tighter. I especially like the parallel layout, not too many people do it but it is the best way and i like the way you set the 90s into the 2x6. Very spiff.

I just noticed the manifold. You may have trouble getting the flow gauges to read any flow with that one. I've used them before and they have a history of sticking. I went back to REHAU or WATTS manifolds.

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Old 12-06-13, 12:01 PM   #355
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Starting the PEX layout today.
I'm curious about some details...

As I recall, you are now living in a house with the tubing on 6" centers, right? And it does look like in you new house, you are going with 12" centers, is that correct, too?

Seems like wider spacing will almost certainly create the need for higher feed temperatures, unless you reduce your home's total heat dissipation with higher levels of insulation, more rigorous infiltration curtailment, and high performance windows.

And it looks as though your floor is suspended, so what kind of under-slab insulation did you have before (in you present house), and what kind of under-slab insulation will your new house have?

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Old 12-06-13, 07:13 PM   #356
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Got me! In our residence, there is no heat in the bedrooms, and sometimes I get a little grief about that if we've forgotten to leave the doors open in cold weather, so in this house I'm going to put just a little heat in the bedrooms, hence the wider spacing, but in truth, I don't see why bedrooms should be heated at all. I will put tubes on 4" centers in the bathroom and 6" centers elsewhere in the house. Sorry not to have provided a little more information.

Both houses have crawl spaces. The concrete is poured (or will be poured) on a plywood subfloor with joists and girders below. I will put a multilayer reflective bubble insulation against the underside of the subfloor first and 6" of fiberglass insulation between the joists after that. In our residence we have only 6" of fiberglass insulation. I've been schooled in the belief that little heat is dissipated downward in such construction, that it's ceilings first, then windows, walls and finally the floor with the stipulation that there be a thermal break around the edge of the slab (when it's not on grade because there one needs lots of insulation below the slab as well) to prevent heat leaking out the sides. That may be old school.

I was reading yesterday an article that provided a way to examine how efficient one's house was regarding heat loss. It stated that if your house lost fewer than 40kBtus per square foot per year, it could be considered reasonably efficient by today's standards. I was feeling smug with the knowledge that our house loses about 15kBtu/SF/yr until I discovered in the fine print that the article had Vermont as its reference. I'm sorry not to be able to link to the article because I didn't save it. mm
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Old 12-06-13, 07:17 PM   #357
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Just make sure that the reflective bubble material is at least 3/4" below the subfloor or it will have next to no effect. Radiant effect requires an air space for the wavelength of heat to reflect. otherwise it just conducts through.
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Old 12-06-13, 07:24 PM   #358
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Just make sure that the reflective bubble material is at least 3/4" below the subfloor or it will have next to no effect. Radiant effect requires an air space for the wavelength of heat to reflect. otherwise it just conducts through.
I've been reading up on that subject. As long as it's a miltilayer product, it will insulate. Some of the multilayer insulation blankets used in the space program have only hundredths of an inch between layers, and yet they are effective. it doesn't take much space, but I get the business of it not working if there's no space. Infra red has to have room to travel, otherwise it's nothing but conduction.

I'm sorry to find out that my manifold is of low quality. In the past, I've built them from scratch, and I had high hopes this would do it all in one simple package. Oh, well. I'll make do.

Here's the small result from today's work as we got rained out by noon. mm

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Old 12-06-13, 07:29 PM   #359
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Yes, the space between emitter and reflector is flexible but most building scientists I've read use 3/4" as standard. To my mind, just getting reflective building paper is as good an option and much cheaper as the bubbles are rather useless as insulation. If I could find the research article done by CMHC in Canada and sited by the Building Science Corp in Mass, I would produce it but.......it's been a while.

Your tubing layout is top drawer, BTW. Very professional. You will snip off the cable ties, I hope. haha.
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Old 12-06-13, 11:53 PM   #360
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Yes, the space between emitter and reflector is flexible but most building scientists I've read use 3/4" as standard. To my mind, just getting reflective building paper is as good an option and much cheaper as the bubbles are rather useless as insulation.
Your tubing layout is top drawer, BTW. Very professional. You will snip off the cable ties, I hope. haha.
Thanks...the cable ties will look cute coming up between the tiles, don't you think?

Check out: Multi-layer insulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

I've seen a two or three layered, quilted, reflective bubble insulation that I'd like to use probably just placing it on top of the fiberglass batts when I push them up into the voids between the joists. It will be imprecise, but there will be a space between the foil and the subfloor just from the settlement of the fiberglass over time.

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