Anthony the Plumber

Putting together manifolds...or voguing

This past week I've been spending a bit of time installing the tubing for the radiant floor heating system. When I say 'a bit' you should know that I'm actually modestly understating the vast amount of time I've sunken into this aspect of our house 'project'. This system was one of the core items we wanted to have in our new house. However we knew that to do it and stay within our budget, sweat equity would be required.

A lot of measuring and a lot of cutting to finish the tube returns.

We were most plumber's worst nightmare: unsatisfied with both the cost of full systems they were quoting us and the energy efficiency of their options, and armed with a neighbor across the street who is a local expert on radiant heating after doing this for his house. It took some time to find a plumber who was willing to cut the job in half: I would handled the tubing and manifold installation (significant labor, low skill) and he'd handle the supply lines from the mani's to the boiler itself (significantly higher skill).

So, with this arrangement I have ended up spending 'a bit' of time planning for the installation, ordering parts, convincing the plumber to do 'research' on the best boiler for our house and explain to me the efficiencies of everything from mixing values to indirect water heaters. Personally, I'm surprised that he hasn't walked away from the job yet. Our first plumber did.

As you may remember, a few weeks ago, we brought in some slave labor to help me install the wood strips used to separate the runs of tubing. Later in the week, while I went to a meeting in Santa Barbara, my mother-in-law continued to work on the system, screwing down some 400 aluminum heat transfer plates (about half of the total amount used). Personally, I'm surprised that she didn't walk away from the job. Our daughter must be really cute.

So, this past week the time came to install the tubing into the tracks, attach everything to the manifolds, and pressurize the system so that we'd know if the tile installers, or someone else punctured a tube while working. I spent Wednesday evening (5pm to 2am) installing the 5 tubes that will heat the top floor (each floor has ~950 ft of tubing on it). Aside from the first one when I was quite nervous about cracking, breaking, bending, or stepping too hard on the tubing, actually laying it went really well and only took ~2 hours. Cleaning the floor beforehand took about 5 hours. The same was true this weekend for the main floor, cleaning 5 hours, tube install 2 hours.

Upstairs tubes in place

Installing and pressurizing the manifolds, what was to be the final step for me task-wise, has become a grey area. We'd like the tubes pressurized before proceeding, but it turns out that I'm a terrible plumber. For the life of me I can't get all the manifold fittings taped and on such that the systems hold a constant pressure overnight.

Upstairs manifold, or "mani" as Jody likes to call it. Once the plumber installs the supply lines, the mani will actually move down and the tubes will fit in their respective slots.

After a night of spraying soapy water on the manifolds, looking for bubbles and tightening and retightening, I'm fairly certain that it is a manifold problem and not a tube problem. But I finally had to give up and call the real plumber in early. I'll try to not ask too many questions this time, and hopefully, he'll spend a bit of time finalizing the installation.

- A