Raidant tubing

Joe wrestling long red snakes!

The radiant tubing stapled up to the underside of the first floor

The special stapler used to attach the radiant tubing. You have to contract the handle three times to insert one staple --which might seem cumbersome-- but it goes quickly

The power company dropping off our new telephone pole

Joe came back yesterday morning after a break of about 2 1/2 months. Its good to have him back.

He and I tackled installing the remaining insulation in the basement yesterday and today set to work on installing the radiant tubing underneath the first floor. With any new project I always feel a little apprehension about getting up to speed and working out the inevitable questions or unknowns that arise. Starting on this project was no different, but after a little time to get going we worked out the routine and it went quite smoothly.

Tomorrow we'll finish up the radiant and if we have time switch out a two windows. One is a bigger window, the other is one that needs to be lowered. Its supposed to be a really nice day.

Oh yes, the power company came and dropped off a new telephone pole. They were going to install it, but the ground was so wet from the recent rain that the decided to come back early next week to actually put it up. So for the next few days we have a telephone pole in our driveway.

Pex, and a pressure test

The various loops of pex tubing all return to a central location where they are then fed into a manifold. The manifold is an impressive cast brass unit that mounts on the wall. What happens after the manifold is something I'll be able to report on once I get there. For now, it all just hangs out.

After hooking up the pex loops in sequence, I then attached a small valve and pressure dial. This allows me to pressurize the tubing system to check for leaks before the concrete is poured when the pex will no longer be accessible. The fitting on the valve receives a bike pump air connection, so, in honor of all things bicycle I decided it was only fitting to pump up the system by bike pump. Roughly 480 strokes later (whew!) the system was up to the required 60 psi. Seeing as it was dark and late and it all looked good, I went to bed and made a note to come back and check it in the morning.

Lo and behold this morning I checked it and it was down to maybe 5 pounds of pressure. Darn. Knowing that the most likely candidate was a leaky connection on the manifold, so I got some soapy water and daubed the various connections and sure enough found a leak. I recconected that fitting and the system has held steady at 60 psi since this morning. I must admit, I used an air compressor to fill the system the second time around.

Insulation and radiant tubing

Today was Joe's first day on the job and it went great. We were getting ready for the concrete slab being poured sometime in the next few days. We had to build a retaining perimeter around the root cellar area and a thermal break at the doorway up to the bulkhead. We also laid down the plastic sheeting, then installed 2" rigid insulation. Once that was done we installed the pex tubing, by which we'll have radiant heat eventually running through the slab. It all went really well, but took way longer then I would have imagined. Hats off to Joe for sticking it out on a long day!