Hey folks, its been a while since I posted here….

I am working hard at our new home and thought I would post on this forum and perhaps get some advice / constructive critism that might spawn ideas, etc.

I’m building in New Brunswick, Canada.  About 30 x 60, plus a prow, a basement and a story and a half.  The basement is all done now.  We are using Logix ICF, 10” walls.  In the basement floor I buried over 3 kilometers of PEX.  We used 1/2” oxypex with 9” spacing, 6” near the walls.  Underneath we put down insulworks 2” insulation there - it was great snapping the tubing into that.

Now we are just finishing putting the first floor joist on.  On top of this I am putting on warmboard radiant panels which double as the subfloor.  I managed to find a deal on these panels on a repoed job in Alaska and had them shipped to me.  Was able to save about $4000 after shipping!

I have a Froling 3000 Turbo preordered from Revision Heat in NH, I’m pretty excited about that!  We’ll will be using storage so I’m thinking it will be most beneficial using the warmboard, which doesn’t require high temps to be effective.

I’m hoping to get away with minimal amount of circ pumps in our system and use zone valves.

Anyway I decided to add some pictures to here if anyone is interested.  Any pointers would be great.  This is my first and last house and I am by no means an expert at anything!  I’m 24 years old and learning everyday.  So far the only person we’ve hired is the floor finisher, everyone else is free help!  I am blessed with many great friends and family.

Couple more pictures.

Jealous!  Looks amazing…..

Amazing project. How much storage are you looking at?

Initially I was thinking 2000 gallons, but I think what I need to do it try and make it so each firing charges the tank.  This is per Patrick Coon’s recommendation from Revision heat.  I was also planning on going with pressurized storage but Pat says we can do non-pressurized storage and use the same number of circ pumps.  Electricity use is very important to me.

Nice combination of 17th and 21st century technology.

I’m curious to know if you did a heat loss estimate to design the radiant and what numbers you used for the log walls. A few decades ago I was started toward doing log construction on my place but ran into a Mobile Dimension sawmill for a price I couldn’t pass up and suddenly everything on my lot looked like a sawlog instead of a pole.

Keep us informed about some of the details that weren’t available back then. Never hear enough about efficiency tricks.

What are you caulking the logs with?

The logs have sheeps wool and are sealed with a gasket, but none of that is ever seen.  It is scribe-fitted and supposed to be airtight without chinking.  Everyone that I spoke with that had their logs done by Heartwood Log Homes - http://www.heartwood-log-homes.com/ spoke very highly of them and their airtight guarantee.  All of them would do it again.

I’ll admit that I never did a heat loss calculation on the house.  I was going to, but decided that I was going to be using warmboard everywhere, upstairs and down as well as a heated slab in the basement.  We are also going to use out woodstove (Pacific Energy - Summit) in the living room as an additional heat source.  So I guess I assumed I was going to be overkill for heat anyway so I wouldn’t have a heatloss calc done.  Although I suppose a calc would definatly help me in deciding what I would need for storage….

We have some really nice calculators put out by the Canadian Government that help in determining heat loss that I should use.  I am using R12 as the min. for the log walls, which have an average diameter of more than 12”.  However the calculators don’t take into account the thermal mass benefits of logs (another argument in itself).

I wanted to do the logs myself but soon realized, after reading several books, how much I didn’t know and how it was a job best suited for the pros and experienced.

Very impressive. You’ll be glad you put in all the radiant heating. I still regret not putting pex in my floor slab when I built twenty years ago. Looks like you’re doing a well thought out and great job. Your assistant sitting on the blanket looks like he might be slacking off though. What kind of outdoor temperatures do you have to deal with up there in New Brunswick? Good luck with your build. Keep us posted.

Mike

That is our first son, he was foreman that day!  The coldest day I’ve ever seen in NB was two winters ago, had a low of -40C - which is -40F as well!  I spent a year in Nunavut and had not seen it that cold over their winter, although the temps up there stayed cold all the time.  Typically we will see -33 C which is -27.4F in a winter.

Pat really knows his stuff and we count ourselves lucky to have ReVision Heat as a dealer.  I would tend to agree that going with a smaller tank makes a lot of sense - especially with such a well insulated home and a low temperature distribution.  I would add that, while I am sure that unpressurized storage can be done with the same NUMBER of pumps as pressurized, pressurized storage will require less pumping ENERGY.  I would encourage you to revisit this issue with Pat and ask him about using a Grundfos Alpha pump and outdoor reset so as to maximize your storage and minimize your pumping electricity consumption.

That’s great!  Yeah, I was glad that Pat recommended the Alpha pumps as they are quite awesome by the looks of them!  What is an outdoor reset?

What a great project.  I am too jealous of the logs, ICF and Warmboard floors.  Don’t forget to design some sort of vacation mode into your system especially one that will work even when power is lost.  Doesn’t look like it will be too difficult with your setup.

If you’re concerned about electricity use, make sure you look at the wattage of the zone valves you select.  Mine are about 10 watts, which doesn’t seem like much.  But, when you have 8 zones, and they are all on - you have an 80 watt load plus your circ pump!

Yeah good point.  I think nofossil was once talking about zone valves that don’t require power to open or close, only to move to their location.  Maybe it was on his website I read it on.  Is this true?

fowlerrudi - 01 September 2010 07:58 AM

Yeah good point.  I think nofossil was once talking about zone valves that don’t require power to open or close, only to move to their location.  Maybe it was on his website I read it on.  Is this true?

Yes, Taco Electronic Ball Valve (EBV) is mentioned here often.  The valves look great on paper but most of us have had our systems in place before the EBV was introduced and don’t have any experience with it.  They require very little energy to activate and require virtually no power to stay activated.  When activation signal goes away they go back to their normal state using energy stored in a capacitor.

As a zone valve it should be great, and there are both NO and NC versions.  However the Cv would typically be too low for more general system applications.

—ewd

The Taco Electronic Ball Valves do use a little power to remain open, about 1.5 watts. They seem very interesting. Wish some of the pros around here would make some observations from the field about their reliability so far.

Here’s a link:

http://www.taco-hvac.com/uploads/FileLibrary/101-090.pdf

You may need to do the usual copy/paste into your browser to get it to work.

P.S. Actually the 3/4” unit seems to have the least resistance to flow of the group. And I seem to remember Nofossil noticing that back a while.