Piping and wiring tips?

[Jackpine Savage]

I'm hoping to start running some pipe in a couple days. I've done a little plumbing, soldering copper, etc. I help out my BIL who is a plumbing and heating contractor once in awhile. He'll also be looking over my shoulder, but he's so darn busy that I hate to take too much of his time.

I'm also working off from plans that a company that specializes in radiant drew up for me. I'm hooking up the Tarm 40 and Electro-Boiler with unpressurized storage in between. I'll have a secondary loop pulling out of the primary loop. There will be a 3-way mixing valve with Tekmar controls feeding two pex manifolds with zone valves. I'll start out from the boilers with iron but transition pretty quickly to 1 1/4 copper.

I guess I'm looking for general tips and advice on putting together a functional, nice looking system. What works well for pipe hangers, where do you wish you had put unions, isolation valves, temp gauges, etc.

For wiring I noticed a product called cordmate that looked like it might make a nice raceway for all the low voltage wire.

If anyone has pictures of their control boards with a mixing valve that would be great to see.

 

[stee6043]

The more gauges, unions and shut-off's the better I say. I ended up with 8 pressure/temp gauges on my system with 2 heat zones and storage. One on each zone supply and return, one on tanks supply and return, one coming right off the boiler and one right after my mixing valve. I also installed a bypass so I could run the boiler without the storage tanks if necessary. Shut-offs before and after each pump for easy replacement are nice. Shutoff's high for venting air help during filling. I utimately had no leaks with my black pipe but I did install 10 or 12 unions "just in case".

This is my "loop" before the boiler was moved in and connected for kicks...

 

[Dune]

I am sure there are differing opinions, but I would not be likely to install any unions. Each circ pump is a union anyway, and should have shutoff valves before and after. There are beautiful mounting flanges for taco pumps available with built in ballcocks, expensive but worth it. Especialy since you are working from a plan, put your money into extra shutoffs instead of unions. Also try to use a good amount of black iron coming off the boiler, before switching to copper. With copper piping, unions are not needed(easy to cut and sweat). If this were an experimental, trial and error system, it would be different.

 

[Jackpine Savage]

That is a nice looking installation Stee. I like the idea of being able to bypass the storage tank. The controls would have to be changed but thats doable.

I agree on getting by without unions on the copper. The unions are expensive and I've had problems in the past with leaks. I do have the flanges with the ball valves for the pumps.

For those with unpressurized storage, do you use the dual weighted flow checks that I see in the SSTS diagrams?

I'm still trying to figure out what to do for pipe hangers.

 

[pybyr]

I'm still trying to figure out what to do for pipe hangers.

get the stuff known as plumber's strap; it comes in 50- 100 foot rolls, galvanized or plain steel.

available at any serious plumbing supply place

it is about 3/4 inch wide with pre-perforated holes

use scraps of discarded inner tube or rejected semi-truck rim liners from a commercial tire dealer to pad the strap from the pipe you are hanging.

for any pipe (including iron) you want the padding for vibration damping; for copper, you want an insulating barrier between dissimilar metals to avoid corrosion

there's even some fancy bolt-less knot that the serious plumbers know to make this stuff into an elegant hanging loop: I am still looking for a lesson in how to do that....

happy pipe hanging

 

[in hot water]

Isolation flanges are a must on all circulators. I like the B&G;brand best with rotating flanges and a fairly good quality valve. It is available with check valves built in also.

Webstone builds some nice valves with purge cocks built into the body. These are VERY handy for getting air out of various loops quickly and easily. also for injecting chemicals and inhibitors.

Caleffi makes very nice air seperators and dirt seperators. No system should be without a good quality air and dirt seperator.

Temperature gauges are great, I'm liking a digital display with multiple sensors to make it all viewable from one or two gauges. Azeltech.com makes a nice dual temperature digital temperature gauge.

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