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Engineering
General Engineering
PEX Pipe in Residential Subfloor Thermal Mass
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[QUOTE="jrmichler, post: 6498908, member: 638574"] It might be too late, but a better approach is to insulate under and outside the footings and basement walls. My own house has 4" foam insulation under the footings and outside the crawlspace walls. Resources: Search [B]hydronic heating system design [/B]to find a number of good hits. Amazon also has a number of books that look good - search [B]hydronic heating[/B]. Short version is that you select the total length of tubing based on the amount of heat transferred in BTU per hour, then select the tubing size and configuration to match the circulating pump. The configuration is the mix of series and parallel in the tubing layout. You will need to study resources from the above searches to learn about pipe pressure loss (AKA head loss), and pump curves. It's good practice to design for minimum pump power. Good search term is [B]pressure loss in pipe[/B]. Lots of good hits with those words. A very rough guess is that you will need at least 100 feet of tubing in the concrete, and possibly as much as 500 feet. More tubing gives more heat transfer and requires more pump power, unless you make some parallel loops. There is an optimum tubing length, but it's a broad optimum, so you do not need extremely detailed calculations. Any water velocity will transfer heat. Higher velocity has a higher heat transfer coefficient, but requires more pump power. Lower velocity will require more tubing, while allowing a smaller pump. Pump power adds up. It can be a surprisingly large portion of your electric bill. My personal preference would be for more tubing and a smaller pump to save energy. [/QUOTE]
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PEX Pipe in Residential Subfloor Thermal Mass
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