Yep, we are still on the subject of PEX tubing for the hydronic heating system.
The installation has an “above ground and below ground” component to it – figuratively, not literally.
The “above ground”component was the PEX installation on the 1st and 2nd floor. The “below ground” component is running the tubing from the first floor into the basement where I need to connect it to the distribution manifold in the utility room.
We had a lot of planning going into this well in advance of any installation. It really started way back when with the location of the utility room. We were going after two key energy objectives:
- Located the utility room with the furnace and domestic hot water supply as centrally in the building footprint as possible. The more centrally located, the easier it was to distribute the hot water through the building and the lower any potential energy losses were.
- Located the utility room with the furnace and domestic hot water supply next to the plumbing wall; again, for ease and efficiency of the hot water distribution.
We had an existing plumbing wall that we planned to reuse. The wall is flanked on one side by the kitchens and the other side by the bathrooms. It extends from the basement all the way to the roof.
The decision to reuse the plumbing wall dictated the location of the utility room in the basement. We located it right next to the plumbing wall onto which we mounted the distribution manifolds for the 1st and 2nd floor heating system. It allowed for an efficient distribution of the PEX network to the radiators.
I made sure that the holes I drilled through the 1st floor for the PEX tubing lined up with the manifold ports in the utility room below. We were practically blind when feeding the PEX through the holes into the basement and I was keen to avoid situations were we would need to snake the tubing around corners.
Cathy carefully fed each PEX run through the 1st floor while I was in the utility room fishing for the end of the tubing. Once I could grab it, I pulled it through, cut it to length and connected it to the compression fitting on the manifold ports.
Cathy had another important job. She was to make sure that I was fed the correct PEX run and that I connected it to the correct – or dedicated supply/return – manifold port.
Back in 2010 while connecting the PEX tubing for the radiant floor slab in the basement, two lines were connected to incorrect ports which prevented the hot water from circulating. We weren’t too much interested in repeating that lesson.
But there is another lesson learned in all this:
At the end of the job, my fingers were hurting pretty badly. Not because I injured them, but more because of fatigue.
With the distribution manifolds mounted this close to the ceiling, this was a very tight spot to work in. Even though PEX is known to be a flexible product, it is pretty stiff when handled in short runs, which required strong fingers to pull, push, bend and attach it.
I would recommend to leave plenty of room around the manifolds (plenty more than we had) for easier and less taxing connections.