As I mentioned in my catch-up post, we got spray foam installation. They showed up Friday and did most of the first floor, then came back Monday and finished late Tuesday. The difference is amazing. Not only does the house look much closer to finished, it feels warmer and quieter and more stable. We got some windy days and the previous “sway” we’d notice in the upper levels is much diminished. It even smells better! We did have some scrambling to prepare for this at the last minute, but it’s exciting to have this step done.
One interesting part of this process is how they did it. With spray foam, the concerns are under spray, over spray, and gaps. They did a really good job of this. They filled wall cavities very thoroughly, only a handful of areas that weren’t 100%. To counter the overspray, they used a wire brush wheel on an angle grinder and just smoothed everything down. This resulted in a colossal mess of tiny foam pellets, but they did a decent job of vacuuming it all up. They also followed up with canned foam to get all the small gaps, including windows, doors, and narrow spaces between studs.
The crew put down plastic sheeting on everything before spraying, so there wasn’t much in the way of drops or mess other than the aforementioned pellets that blow around, and as I said, they did a good job cleaning up. The house is now staying a comfortable room temperature, and we’re very pleased.
Wow, there has been a lot going on recently, so much that I scrapped some posts-in-progress since I’m falling behind. So, let me catch you up on where things are, what’s happening next, and I apologize for not providing all the details as it’s happened.
Pex connections in the mechanical room
First, with the radiant panels installed and the core upgrade complete, I finished pressure tests and got the manifolds connected on each floor. Dean helped me get the new controller mounted and hooked up. We just jumpered the first and second floor thermostats to the basement, since we don’t have thermostats on each floor yet.
I got the first floor filled, but the water didn’t flow initially because of all the air in the lines. I had to loosen and then re-tighten individual lines on the manifold and let the air out, catching the water with a rag, then I flushed several buckets through until it was finally flowing. The new pumps have a GPM meter, but since the old one doesn’t I don’t really know if the rate is good or not. I ordered and installed some air bleeders for each manifold, thinking this would make the second floor go more easily, but it really didn’t. Ultimately, I had to do the same process to get the air out of the lines before it would start flowing. So, water is flowing through our radiant floors, the attic radiators won’t be hooked up until after drywall.
Next up, we finally got our new permit! After the final corrections from the architect were submitted, they issued our permit and I used bill pay through my bank to pay the fees as well as the expeditor. Meanwhile, the GC scheduled rough inspections. Unfortunately, that bill pay took forever, and when the framing inspector showed up, I still didn’t have the official paper permit. As luck would have it, he was pretty understanding, and he passed us anyway. We signed the previous permit and noted in their system that it was passed for the new permit.
The expeditor did get the check and the physical permit, and I drove over and picked it up. Then the plumbers had rough inspection, but in the months since they were here before, I’d received some things like the bathtub and valve bodies for the showers, so they were rushing to get that installed as well as run the rest of the supply lines. Since that involved them shutting off the water and being in the basement, we got an AirBnB for the day and just left them to it. They wrapped up and passed inspection. Electrical inspection was Friday (all of this was last week), and he passed as well.
Next the GC said that the spray foam contractor was going to come out to provide an estimate on Monday, which he did. I’ve continued working through my list of items and figured I could wrap some of that up this coming weekend. Then the GC called me yesterday afternoon to say the spray foam guys were coming today (Friday)!
Solar tube installation in progress
With less than a day notice to get everything ready, Dean came over and we started rushing through some items that needed to get done for them to be able to spray. Some of it was simple, like putting down more ram board to protect the radiant floor or moving stuff away from the exterior walls. Other items were getting the bathroom exhaust ducts connected and caulked, finally getting started on the interior portion of the solar tubes, getting that second floor radiant flowing (so it would be warm enough to spray), and vacuuming out the walls and attic to remove the sawdust and debris that keeps building up through this process, which Sarah did most of. Dean and I also ran some conduit for the TV and network, not as much as I’d planned originally, but enough for what we need. Most things are wireless these days, so I’m not too worried about it.
Today the spray foam installers showed up, and we learned they were going to start with the first floor today. They covered windows and doors with plastic and got to work. We couldn’t get any shots in progress because I couldn’t get in the front door while they were working, but after the first day alone, it’s a transformation. They almost finished the first floor, but a lot of the time was prep. They put down plastic sheeting over all the windows and along all the walls.
AC installation should be in a few weeks or so and drywallers are getting lined up. I need to run the wired security system once the foam is in. I may try to run a bit more conduit for network.
Existing “Core” with basement and radiator loops (radiators disconnected)
With the panels installed and the pex run, the next step is to prepare the radiant heat distribution in the mechanical room. Initially, I was under the impression that the system we had was all ready to accept the new zones, but it turns out that Lester didn’t really set this up for everything to just easily connect. Even though our plan for the radiant heating hasn’t changed, and our house still has the same number of floors and hence distribution zones, our existing system is only set up for three zones, and the controller is equipped for only one zone.
Unfortunately, this means that the heart of the system needs to be replaced with a larger unit. This is properly called a “hydraulic separator/manifold” but I refer to it as ‘the core’ because it’s easier and it sounds cool. Without getting too far into the weeds, the way our system works is the boiler has a supply and a return line that both connect to the core. The core in turn, has supplies and returns for each zone, or floor, of our house. It’s like an octopus reaching out to the rest of the house. On each floor there’s a supply and return manifold to distribute to individual loops on that floor.
A manifold just splits the flow of hot water from an inlet to several outlets with individual valves or, in the case of a return manifold, combines several inlets to one outlet. This way each floor has a water circuit to and from the boiler. Each zone has its own pump, and all but the hottest loop (the radiators in the attic) have mixing valves to adjust the temperature down from the boiler temp to something more suitable for that floor, since radiators generally run hotter than in-floor heat. Each zone will also have its own thermostat, so that they can call for heat individually.
I bought the same brand core as the old one, a Caleffi Hydrolink, just with more ports. I did this partly because the basement mixing valve is also made by Caleffi, and it’s sized to screw directly onto the supply and return ports. The only major change was that the new core has more ports, and one of the pairs of ports is on the bottom, which can go directly to the basement loop, and the other three sets on top can go to the first floor, second floor, and attic. I also bought fancy pre-built mixing valve and pump combo units to run the first and second floor units. I already had the parts for the attic from when we ran the radiators on the second floor.
The biggest concern is that it’s winter, and the system is running to keep the basement where we live warm. We need to shut off the heat, drain the water, completely take it apart and reconfigure it, hook the basement back up and hope nothing goes wrong, nothing leaks, and that we have heat when it’s all done. For a project like this, I called in Dean.
New Core installed, problems afoot
We got to work, and at first things mostly seemed to go smoothly. We got the system drained and the old core removed, but once we had the new core in place, we started running into some problems. First, there’s a port on the bottom that fills the system from the water supply that wasn’t in the same spot, so the plumbing didn’t line up. I hadn’t accounted for this, so I didn’t have the parts to adjust it. Before I ran to the store, though, we decided to see if everything else worked, and that’s when we discovered the bigger problem.
Mixing valve with janky connection
Caleffi apparently changed the spacing on their supply and return ports at some point in the last several years from 90mm to 120mm. This meant the Caleffi mixing valve for the basement loop that I already had didn’t fit on the new core. The new stuff fit, since it’s from the same model year or whatever. So I went to the store and picked up some brass fittings and we got it together as best we could.
Planning alternatives
Unfortunately, things didn’t line up very well, but it was getting late, so we made do and turned it on. For the next week the system had some slow leaks and the heat couldn’t quite get up to the thermostat even though it wasn’t all that cold outside. I came up with a new design, got some new pipe fittings, and started reconfiguring it yesterday. I discovered my new design still wouldn’t work, so I decided just to remove the mixing valve for now, and hooked up the system without it.
Mixing valve removed, cleaner connection
Since we’re not using the radiators right now anyway, the whole point of the mixing valves isn’t that important right now and we can decide if and when to change it later. The next steps will be connecting the pex lines that go to the other zones, running electrical to the new pumps, and replacing the controller.
I’ve spent the last few weekends on radiant. With the second floor panels installed, the next step was to run the Pex tubing. To do that you vacuum out the track, put down a bead of sealant that helps thermally connect the tubing to the track, then put the Pex tubing in. You can supposedly “walk it in” but in my experience you have to follow the tubing around with a rubber mallet and smack it into the track.
Installing Pex tubing
I got a couple loops of the second floor done during the week, then Aaron and David came back to help me finish the rest of the second floor loops. I had forgotten my careful previous planning when I bought the Pex, so I wound up using the wrong length coils on the second floor, which led to some unfortunate waste and a hasty order of additional tubing. With the loops down, we cut and fit plywood into all the remaining sections of the floor until everything was filled in.
During that week I got the rest of the joist tape up on the first floor ceiling. I didn’t want to drag the ladder around with the panels down. The next weekend I started clearing out the first floor and of course discovered a list of minor tasks that also needed to be done, like chiseling out a section of blocking that I had originally expected wouldn’t be an issue if we furred out the ceiling, which we wound up not doing. I also had to screw up additional 2x4s as nailing edges in the ceiling in a couple places.
Back of first floor panels
I got the panels down in the back of the first floor, and the next day with Aaron and David’s help we go the rest down. Unfortunately, as we got to the front door, we hit two snags. First, we ran out of panels. I had ordered extra, but apparently not enough. I had a small stack of the return panels, but no more straights, so we counted up what we needed and I got those on order. Second, the subfloor by the front door was too high.
Kitchen panel installation
After all the time I spent leveling the joists and subfloor, this is frustrating. I calculated the height of the finished floor and positioned the door jamb accordingly, but somehow, there wasn’t enough room for the door sweep to clear the finished floor. Better to notice this before I put the radiant panels down, but still a headache.
Since we were out of panels anyway, I spent the week sorting out what to do, considering an engineered floor rather than hardwood, and eventually using a laser level to find that there was a distinct bow in the subfloor. I got out my power planer and a couple block planes and shaved down the subfloor until it was consistent, flat, and low enough for the door to clear it. Even so, I may need to replace the weather stripping.
Screwing down panels by the front door
With that done and the new panels arrived, Aaron and David came back this last weekend and we got the remaining panels and pex installed, but ran out of screws and pex before we could finish. We also got some of the plywood cut and fit, but not screwed down. To finally wrap this up I need more screws, more pex, more plywood, and probably one more weekend.
As I mentioned in my last post, we needed to make some progress on the radiant installation. We’re using in-floor radiant heating for the basement, first, and second floors, with radiators in the attic. The basement has tubing in the concrete slab, but on the first and second floors, this takes the form of plywood panels with aluminum backing. The first step is to design the layout, followed by cutting and fitting the panels to match that layout. The next steps are to apply a bead of caulk and run the pex tubing in the track, perform a pressure test, and then connect the manifold for each floor to the boiler in the basement mechanical room.
Starting layout in the suite bathroom
Sarah and I got started installing the radiant panels on the second floor. Then our nephews, Aaron and David, came down to pitch in. We managed to get all of the panels for the second floor installed, with only a couple small deviations from the plan where measurements were slightly off. We got into a routine where I measured and laid out panels, Aaron cut the needed pieces to length on the chop saw, and David followed us a room behind with collated screw gun.
I was pleased with how smoothly most of this process went, since usually we quickly discover unexpected complications. The trickiest part was where the lines converge at the manifold. the manufacturer recommends putting the converging pex lines into thinset or buying a fancy panel, but instead I used the router to add some additional tracks to the panels. There were also a couple of places where we needed the path needed to bend a bit to fit through a doorway. We have six lines running down the hallway (supply and return from three loops), which didn’t quite fit through the door.
Panels and loops
We also had a couple of moments where we had to re-trace the path of the tubing a couple of times to be sure we had it right. The curved return track pieces can go either direction, so it’s not obvious how things will route with a glance. Sarah even brought up a ball of yarn to lay out in the track to keep things straight.
Squiggly corners, more panels
I’ve started filling in the plywood strips and we’ll get the tubing installed and pressure tested. We’re hoping to knock out the first floor this weekend, and hopefully get the system powered up and heating the house before too long. To do that we still have to reconfigure the core in the mechanical room, which will be a nerve-wracking undertaking, since we’ll lose heat during the process.
