HVAC in two days...

Here is the rub...

They installed it in TWO DAYS!!!  Yup, 3 guys, 2 days... 

The installers deserve large accolades for this task, as is obvious they are the ones that actually do the work.  But be clear, the behind the scenes on this one was one of the most talented contractors I have ever met.  He and his wife laid this entire system out on CAD, on an overlay of my house plan that they modified.  Every single duct length, size, location, wire, return...all of it was planned out in advance.  Gary knew exactly what stud bays would lay each duct, where they would transiton, etc.  Gary's wife actually did the layout on CAD.

Gary knows more about HVAC than anybody I have ever met, and with my background, I can assure you I am hard to impress in this particular area. 

Here are some pictures...

WaterFurnace Synergy3D system.  Amost 600 Pounds.  I wasn't there, but they tell me it was heavy.  5 guys they say, and there were only 3 there, so must have asked their boss (my contractor) and the 5th guy maybe was the delivery truck driver???  I'm glad I wasn't there for that part.  More about the stand later (I promise not to dissappoint)  OH, the ductwork that is attached is the returns, of which there are 3.  This pic was taken before they were done.  And the unit is sitting out of plumb, which drove me crazy and I had the guys help me straighten it out.

So, I was really concerned they would screw up all the attic storage space.  So from the beginning, I made it crystal clear we were to minimize the impact on this space.  This probably looks bad on the picture, but it only really wiped out about a 4 x 8 foot of space.  The ductwork is up fairly quickly and high enough you can get underneath it.  These things are 14 inch ducts, and they are insulated to R6, so probably close to 2 feet in diameter.  Bigger than they look in the picture, but I still have plenty of room for our Christmas decorations for sure.

Looking up from the Kitchen...  These ducts are traveling hither and yon to the opposite side of the house.  You are seeing 2 giant supply ducts, and 2 giant return ducts.  They are secured pretty close to the rafters, so my foam guy is going to hate me for talking him into going after the ductwork.  He normally likes to go before, to avoid this problem.  BUT.  I have my reasons (structural and mechanical inspections, not being able to see where they are putting nails, and possibly nailing into my plumbing, etc).   To calibrate your eyes, the peak of this vault is 14 feet off the floor.

This is an air distrubution box.  The air comes into the triangle shaped box, which is about 4 feet to a side, and then pressurizes the box fairly equally on the opposite two sides.  With the pressure being uniform, they can now tap off with different sizes to predict the airflow requirements of the individual ducts.  The triangle box is also suspended from the rafters.  Behind every attachment point (covered in the flex duct) is a hard pipe connection, with an adjustable damper inside to boot.  There are hard pipe connections at every single attachment point.  I thought about using hard pipe for the whole job, but the price difference was STAGGERING....  Even hard pipe for just the supply plenum across the attic halfway was several thousand dollars more.  I couldn't justify the cost difference.

This is the one pipe that travels up and over the storage space, then coming down on a distant bedroom before it spiders off to the associated bath and closet.  Note that they even kept my sons catwalk to the train landing clear.  Thanks HVAC guys...

I have some family in town, and when we (my brother in law and myself) walked into the house after being gone for a few hours we were shocked.  You could not even walk through the house.  Ductwork and trash everywhere.  Wow...  I'm thinking.  But, their system worked really well.  They laid out the entire system on the floor below, so they could measure and connect everything beforehand (in large part anyway), then they set all the supply and return boxes up above, and then gradually moved the whole apparatus from low to high, and then attached it.  They used the garage for staging everything.  You couldn't walk in there either.  So, after two days, my brother in law and myself walked into the house late afternoon, and the system is DONE.  Everything swept, and in new condition, not a speck of trash anywhere (except for the one garage bay where I told them to put everything, which is trash all boxed up and ready for haul).

Another shot of ducts.  This one is that same triangular box, but you can barely see it from here.  The square box you do see is an air return, above the piano area.  Some other things I should bring up... First, I ended up installing the Panasonic vent fans I bought (they hooked up the ducts and such, but I stuck them into the rafters).  I didn't want to get "location surprise" on those fans, as I was pretty picky on their location.  Ended up being a good call, because they were weird.  The fans actually break apart in two pieces and need to be screwed together with a little finger screw they supply.  But, if you didn't read the directions, you would never know this, and they had been taped together.  Yes, I read the instructions.   BTW, the fans are rated at a fairly small 50 and 80 CFM (depending on location).  They produce less than 0.3 sones of sound.  So you can't really hear them, just a little air noise.  They are superbly engineered with a special plastic wheel, isolation mounts for the motor and cage, and a special plastic housing over the larger ones to reduce noise.  The standard builder fans cost about 15 dollars, make incredible amounts of noise, leak, and move almost no air, they are worthless.  For my purposes, I installed the larger Panasonic fans in areas where either myself or wife would control them, and the smaller fans in "unsupervised" locations like the kids bathrooms and the guests.  Their only purpose is to remove humid air (showers) and anything stinky.  Don't run them at other times.  The ducts on these is not insulated, but flexible hard aluminum pipe.  They are terminated under the eves with a special double damped, caged vent, which is also very, very white.  I hope we can paint them. 

Also, they ran 8 inch hard pipe for the kitchen hood vent.  I ran into a lot of flack with the roofers over exactly how to vent this through the tile roof, which I didn't want to do anyway.  So, in the end, I vented it out over the porch, which is sealed off away from the living space.  This also allowed me to use a damper type vent cap.  The kitchen venting is essentially the same as the bathrooms, humid and stinky things got to go, but you don't need to pull 1000 CFM to make that happen, smaller for longer is the mantra here... AND, if they aren't quiet, then nobody will turn them on. 

They also ran a "fresh air return" from the back of the house.  This thing allows the system to draw in air anytime the house is low on pressure, and actually hooks right into another return.  So, if the house gets low on pressure, it can suck in air from this thing as needed.  This can happen when you are running a fireplace or other vent fans.  I could have installed (and still can if I change my mind) an Energy Recovery Ventilator in place of this, but I have changed my opinion on their necessity.  The ERV uses energy to operate, operates too much, and can't adequately remove humidity from the incoming air... so why pay 1000 dollars for a piece of equipment you have to feed electricity to for the priviledge of slightly better air than you can get for free???  OH, and this only really matters when the temperatures are at extremes...  I would want to shut it off the rest of the time...

Forgot to mention in that picture above, that the catwalk you can't see to the left is still perfectly clear...  No wires, no ducts....  so far...

Ok, for some fun stuff.  If you haven't been paying attention, then you don't know I am an incessant tinkerer...  Here is my latest contraption...  This would be a vibration isolation mount.  You are looking at an extremely heavy wooden platform, on top of another heavy duty platform, which is supported by 6 Chevy  big block lifter springs (Autozone $2 per).  The right side sits 1/4 inch higher than the left to account for the unit sitting further right than left.  The springs don't actually "dampen" vibration, but they help isolate any movement above from transfering mechanical energy downward into the slab, or to the wall behind (sits out away from the wall too).  Since the compressor and a lot of other mechanical equipment is all contained right in the GSHP, I was worried about transferring vibration and noise into the structure of the house.  This was my idea, and took just a few hours to build.  Additionally, when the HVAC guy ordered the unit, he ordered an "air bed" for the unit to sit on.  This basically looks like thick black foam.  Between the fact there is two walls between the unit and every living space, plus all this apparatus, and the fact that GEO units are supposed to be very quiet, and it is the 3D version (touted as quieter than others), I am hoping we are safe on noise...

Here is a closeup of those springs.  By the way, if I really wanted to dampen the movement of the unit, I would have to add an absorber of some sort.  The spring just allows the top part to move independently from the bottom...  Once upon a time I could have written a differential equation, and with some spring coeffecients and damper information, would have been able to predict if this thing would work...even check for harmonics...  Instead, I am just guessing.  It's a lot more fun.

Have a great weekend....

I bought some wire...

I bought some wire...

29,000 feet of it and counting...  That doens't include what my sparky will bring in terms of Romex...

Loaded down the truck pretty good.  My very smart wife suggested I check for an "online" coupon as I had a bunch of this in my shopping cart...  Sure enough, close to 30 percent off the entire order and it cost me a google search and 30 seconds... She is smart.

From left to right... First wire is a 5 conductor mini-RGB (750 feet at close to $1/ft), which is actually the RED, GREEN, and BLUE in component television signals.  The other two wires are for horizontal and vertical sync, but I won't be using them for that... Rather it gives me an additional set of wires to run to each TV for switching the security system or old fashioned composite...  Whatever I need.  I also bought a compression tool so I can properly terminated the ends of this wire.  At the equipment room, I will be using an 8 by 8 commercial, high definition matrix switch, capable of 425 Mhz bandwidth.  What does that mean?? Well, I can take any of 8 HD component sources and switch them in any and all combinations to any of 8 display devices...  The particular unit I have was purchased new on eBay for a steal (quite literally possibly??) of $500 dollars a couple years back with this purpose in mind.  It can be controlled manually, with IR signals, or with RS-232 commands.  It also has the ability to control analog stereo audio signals as well, so I can hook that rig up to a multichannel amplifier and run both the video and audio in those rooms.   It can control the volume of the audio.   

Next wire... Standard old RG6 Quadshield...  This wire is great for one thing... Satellite signals from the dish to the receiver, which ends up being all the way across the house because of a very nice shade tree blocking it's other likely location.  I was originally not going to do anything else with this cable, but decided it prudent to run 2 each to each TV location as well... just in case.  It wasn't free but certainly not expensive given the complexity of running this stuff after the fact...  So I bought 3000 feet of it...

3rd wire... Cat5e, or Category 5e wire.  This is what most people would run for their computer data, and a lot of folks now running higher bandwidth Cat6 (I will probably stick in some Cat6 later to the office only).  Anyway, I am using this stuff for all kinds of goodies... Centralite lighting control allows it's use from each switch pad to the 3 superstars, Russound Compoint intercom systems (2 exterior call stations and 12 interior stations), hardwired infrared command signals, two runs each to each TV location in case something magical happens in this regard (long story, but digital signals for HD are very tricky), plus Cat5e for phone hookups and data, which will all terminate at a hub so I can patch to an appropriate devide.  The nice thing about what I just said is that you can have a phone jack one day, switch two wires, and presto, ethernet computer port. 

One quick note about Cat5e wire, you can find this stuff for about 40 dollars per 1000 here and there, but watch the fine print... Not all of it is solid copper.  Look out for a wire called CCA (copper clad aluminum).  CCA wire may be ok for short runs of data wire, but any wire that runs current may cause heat buildup, and this wire is NOT tested for that...  I ended up finding solid copper for about 55 dollars per 1000, and I couldn't justify the cost savings for the risk of the unknown.  I am not saying that CCA wire is not capable of these functions, but there isn't any data on it out there, so I steered clear.

I bought several colors so I can keep this stuff as organized as possible (hmmm...right). 

This is boring you, I can tell...

Last wire is 14 gage speaker wire, in this case, CL3 rated in-wall 2 conductor.  I have also 1500 feet of this same wire in a 14/4 configuration, because the Compoint intercom system requires you to run your speaker wire to the stations first, and then 14/2 wire to each speaker in that location.  This allows the compoint to "capture" your audio speakers, mutes the music, and then makes the announcement or chimes.  It's a very cool system, but uses up some extra wire.  (I've been watching some ceiling speakers on eBay that look very nice, 8 inch coax speakers that are angled inside a 10 inch enclosure...  I think I will buy a pair and play with them...)

Oh, and the 14/4 speaker wire in a 1000' bundle was the heaviest cable by far...  1500 feet of that, and 2000 feet of the 14/2. 

Also bought some 22/6 stranded alarm cable for use by the Centralite panels to discuss things with each other. 

AND, bought 150 feet of 2 INCH... VERY hard to find, flex conduit.  This allows me to pass the entire HDMI cable (and head) through the walls later in some hard to get to locations in case I want to change out to HDMI in those rooms...

OK, so why not HDMI everywhere, you ask... Good question, but in a nutshell HDMI is a crappy interface cable.  If you want a 1080P or higher signal you are tied to it however.  Problem is, that with even moderate runs of over 35 feet, it's an iffy signal (not to mention HDCP copy protection gets all messed up when you pass through multiple components, I am told).  I have three televisions that will use this interface however... The plan is to switch between 4 source components in HDMI to a HDMI 4x4 matrix switch, then feed 3 receivers that decode the audio, and pass the HDMI video signal to the video monitors in those rooms sans audio.  It should work, and I think the 1080P signal difference is worthwhile on those larger TVs, but not worth the trouble in places like the garage and master bath, etc...

So, I DID buy a 100 foot HDMI cable that has a build in amplifier.  It takes the power build into the interface and uses it to run the amplifier.  It is a one way cable, though... I checked it out today in my existing house between the HD TIVO's and my current living room TV... Worked great, and made a huge improvement over my existing component signals...  I was unable to check it for 1080P signals as I am in the stone age on BlueRay...  Wife says "talk to the hand...."  It will happen when she's not looking someday soon, though;-)

So lets change the subject...  Some more eBay purchases... Bought two of these TACO RMB (radiant mixing blocks).  They are two pumps connected in a singular housing, that mixes hot supply water with return water from the radiant floors, adding heat as required to arrive at a desired supply temperature for the radiant supply lines...  The computer that makes all those decisions is right on board...  I bought both in auctions with very little competition... Saved about 1000 dollars over internet prices.  These things are MUCH bigger than I had pictured...

OK, one more shot of the 3 rolls of mini RGB wire.  For those of you experts out there that are thinking I am stupid for not running pure Quad RG6, I have poured over 100's of pages of opinions on this very subject, and of those that have installed this wire instead, not a single problem.  RG6 on the other hand they have had several problems...  Worse yet, the RG6 is a really stiff cable and not very friendly between the wall and television, and with a lot of cables mounted on an articulating arm, the arm gets out of whack and the cables act like a spring, pushing your television around... 

One more rant about HDMI... For the love of pete, why didn't the industry just use an already existing format for this interface... my choice would have been the fiber optic (TOSLINK) connection.  No distance limitations, easy to use, inexpensive, and could easily manage the digital encryption requirements of HDCP...   

Tomorrow, (well, actually in about 3 hours), I am meeting up with the framer to finish up some things... Frame around fireplace #2, frame the equipment room A/V hole, can lights, fill in the archs on the front door, etc. 

I have also been designing a giant "vibration isolation table" for the Geothermal to sit on... Basically, it's a frame mounted to one concrete wall and the concrete floor, then a floating table above that which will "ride" on 6 Chevrolet big block lifter springs (very stout) which will be recessed in guide holes.  Then, the geo will further sit on giant military grade rubber isolation mounts.  I am fearful of vibration and noise getting in to the slab or framing...  Geo guy want's to elevate things so the condensate will go down the pipe, so why not...

Yup, I'm way over the edge now...  Please send help...

OH, to make matters worse.. Not I am thinking maybe about doing my own central vac... It doesn't look very hard...

Prepping the Radiant Manifolds

I have been SUPER BAD lately about getting my rear off a chair and actually getting anything done.  Some kind of motivation problem...  Well, I did work over last weekend and then took the kiddos to an airshow (strictly for them, I got no enjoyment out of that ;-)

Anyway, even after that still having a motivation problem.  But, lots to report anyway...

1.  Lighting Control equipment was ordered and already delivered...
2.  Radiant Manifolds are now ready to stick into place...

Here are some shots of the radiant manifolds.  Starting from parts out of the box...  I had heard that some of these good deals were because the manifolds were not pre-assembled....  Turns out there is a reason for that...

Here are the parts out of the box...ok, still in the box...

Out of the box...

I threw this picture in because I searched for months for this very picture on the internet myself.  The flow rates on this gage start at 0, and then increase to 1.2 gallons per minute in increments of 0.2 gallons per minute.  There is also a metric scale in Liters per minute.  This is on the supply manifold, and is basically a little plunger that gets pulled down into the water against a spring.  The faster the water flow, the more it gets sucked down.

Looking inside the supply side of the manifold at the plunger and flow control mechanismn...

Now looking into the blue return manifold.  The shutoff valve for each zone is actually located on the return.  It is just another plunger than pushes a seal down over a seat, and stops the flow.  The blue shutoff valve can be replaces by a solenoid type deal that is controlled by a thermostat, but I am using the "outdoor reset" concept, so I don't have that actuator.

Finally, 4 completed manifolds, ready for action.  Ok, so I said they were not pre-assembled.  I have some manifold locations that would be better served if I can route the supply lines in from the right side rather than the left.  Disregard what the manifold guy told me, I switched the position of the air elimination valves with the supply shutoff valves, and presto...  OK, the supply valve handle is on the bottom rather than the top.  I don't think that will matter...

Here is a shot of one of the Centralite dimming relay panels.  This one has the cover one, and is 14 1/2 inches wide and 44 inches tall. 

Here is a shot with the cover off. (10 screws, by the way...)  At the bottom of the panel is the Super Star board, which hooks up to all the "buttons" and senses activity.  When a button is pressed, the star tells the Master Control Panel (not pictured), which decides what to do with the lights, and then fires off a command to the Relay Driver Board (smaller board just above the STAR.  The Relay Driver Board then varies a command voltage over a phase control dimming relay (solid state dimming by shutting on and off the electricity 60 times per second, which therefore controls the voltage, resulting in a lower voltage square wave)    thus controlling the light circuit.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Another closeup shot of the Star, lower larger panel, and the Relay driver board, smaller panel upper right.  Both of these panels are powered by a small A/C transformer. 

Closer up shot of the dimming modules, each dimming module consists of 4 dimming relays, fed by a 20 amp circuit breaker.  So in one panel, there are 6 modules of 4 circuits, to control 24 banks of lights each.  I have 3 panels, for a 72 load total.  But that is just for dimmable loads, which are incandescent and halogen lights....

Here is what controls the other "devices"... a High Voltage Relay Board.  These relays are NOT dimmable, and notice I didn't say it controlled lighting.  It can control lights by turning them on or off, but it can also control anything you can plug into an electrical circuit...  hot water recirc pump, whole house water shutoff, kitchen outlets, bathroom outlets, etc.  In my case I am using these to control ceiling fans on and off as well as ventilation fans, plus the other mentioned items.  Each box has 16 loads each, which just acts like a light switch on/off, but computer controlled either by programming or by command.  These boxes do NOT have a STAR in them, but they could.  I already have 3 super stars which are capable of 96 button inputs each, for a total of 288 inputs.  These could be Centralite switches, or any kind of momentary contact switch you can dream up.  The system also interfaces via RS232 ports with other control systems such as a home automation controller.  I have two of these HVRB's, for 32 loads.  Centralite also makes a LVRB, or Low Voltage Relay Board.  This board is quite a bit different and can either switch a low voltage on/off/on (for reversing dc motors) or it can supply the actual low voltage itself for various things....  sprinkler valves, electronic shades, blinds, etc...

The HVRB...

Sorry these pictures aren't turned exactly right.  The red cables are premade leads with spade connectors on the ends.  I need to confer with my electrician about the best way to feed all these HVRB devices I have discussed, but I am leaning towards a series of 20 amp circuit breakers each feeding the appropriate items. 

Ok, enough of this post...  I have an enormous amount of work to catch up on, but sleep first... 

Good night...

Iron Door -- IN!!

Ok, that's 2 less holes in the house in just a few days.  The hole they put the door in was a bit larger than that little 2x2 window I put in...this one was 9 feet tall and almost 6 feet wide.  Cuts down on the breeze through the house...

So, here it is...

We had to snap these shots before they covered everything back up in plastic.  Far from finished.  Some day I may take a picture of my daughter in front of this door on her way to the prom (with a shotgun in my other hand), or perhaps my son in a cap and gown...  Both of those scenarios seem miles away, and yet they will be upon us soon...

One of the doors sitting alone waiting to be installed.  The entire door assembly will weigh close to 1000 pounds.  It took 3 guys to carry one of these...  The scrollwork is hand forged from solid iron, and then welded in place into the door.  By the way, they sit on roller bearing hinges and you can open and close them easily with one little finger.  I would suggest you keep your fingers out of them when they are closing...

Some things to note...  First, the doors do not yet have the glass, which is actually mounted in another hinged assembly, and then attaches to the inside of the door behind the scroll iron.  These hinged panels have their own weatherstripping.  You can actually open the glass portion of the door without opening the door and have a conversation without opening the big door, or you can open them for ventilation.  I have not measured the cat to see if he will fit through the scrollwork ;-)  Anyway, the glass doors and weatherstripping will be added after all the other construction is complete.  They will also touch up any areas where the coating is chipped.

Another thing to notice... Where are the handles??  And why is there only one hole where the lock will go??  Well, the handles are actually welded on later, and are about 2 feet tall forged scroll iron, both inside and out.  There is no latch on the door.  NO LATCH, you say....  The right hand door is held in place by upper and lower recessed door bolt locks, but the left door is held steady to that door by pressurized rollers...friction.  That leaves the hole you see in the picture above to hold a traditional style deadbolt.  The door is either locked, and secure, or it is unlocked, and you just push it open and shut...

There were a lot of things to cover when we ordered the door...  Everything was thought out as best we could from flooring thickness, threshold and jamb thickness (remember we have 11 inch walls, so a traditional jamb thickness wouldn't work), exterior materials and thickness, door swing, lock style, and then finally, the actual door style and finish.  Even the way the door swings into the arches above the door had to be factored in.  The artwork is designed on CAD, and then once everyone is happy, the design goes off to our friends down in Mexico, where they actually make the door.

A shot from inside looking out.  Notice we still have to address the difference between the "rough" opening size and the actual door.  This will be filled with closed cell foam, with stone right up to the door on the outside, and the drywall will actually do a "bullnose" return from the interior wall back inbehind the door frame on the inside.  This makes it possible for us to not have to surround this door with a dorky piece of wooden trim, which would look great on a normal wooden door, but pretty out of place in this case...

To get these dimensions, I had to think a bit on the fly today.  Originally, they were going to mount the door interior frame flush with the interior wall, because we feared any recess more than that would cause the door to bind on the drywall return, but in reality, the door showed up with welded "tabs" which we didn't plan for... Well, the door remains more stable if you mount it with tabs, so I had the installers cut out a section of the door buck to match the tabs, and recessed the tabs all the way back to the first concrete surface in the ICF.  That left us with about 2 1/2 inches of frame protruding past the ICF buck on the outside, so we now have something to bring the stone up against on the outside, and the bullnose sheetrock return on the inside. OH, and the doors don't hit their own frame, rather they actually hit the arched detail above the doors way prior to their own frame, so by moving the door we didnt' really change anything functionally.  We will have to install a bumper stop on the floors to keep the doors from dinging the arches above, which we expected from the beginning. 

That is me, wondering if I am screwing up the dimensions by changing the door mount on the fly....

This is one of the doors, still sitting on the truck.  You should note that we choose a lot of energy effecient items for the house where we could.  This door is NOT one of those items.  I could hardly put my hand on it after it was sitting in the sun, it felt like 300 degrees.  So, they put expanded foam inside the metal panels in the door, and lead you to believe that insulation is going to help....well, it doesn't really do anything for heat or cold, because the heat just short circuits right around the metal frame to the other side.  BUT, the foam does serve a VERY important purpose.... it makes the interior of the door and frame unable to hold moist air, which can condense on the cold side of the door interior an then the door to rust from the inside... 

Fortunately, our door will NEVER see the sun again after it left the truck.  The front door is not in the line of the sun at any time of the day or year.  It's still an energy hole, though...  I would NOT suggest you mount one of these suckers in direct view of the sun if you live in a cooling dominant climate...

Sure is pretty, though...

Also met today with our Geothermal contractor, which there are actually two of....  One of the guys is responsible for installing the "loop field" or the "ground source", while the other guy handles all the matters inside, like zoning, ductwork, thermostat location, air returns, filtration, etc.  We have a lot of issues in both cases, because outside we are trying to stay clear of driveways, electrical service, water service, and easements... OH, and TREES.  The drilling rig is just that, a pretty big 18 wheel trailer size rig and they have to stand up a tower in amongst the trees to make it dig.

  Inside, we have to work around ceiling details, like the groins and barrels, as well as ceiling speakers, lighting, gluelams, decorative beams, etc.  It actually turns out to be quite a puzzle.  Even the air vents that vent out the soffits have to be planned not to interfere with the corbels...   Both contractors are acutely aware now of what our concerns are, so I am hopefull the whole project will go smoothly...

For the outside geothermal loops, I learned some things... the wells will be 250 feet deep each.  That number is the limit of the amount of head loss you can accept with a 3/4 inch polyethelene pipe going up and down at a particular flow velocity.  The holes are only about 4 inches around, and they have done a geotech survey and predict wet, sandy silt with clay.  That is good news for us, because it will have a very high thermal conductivity number, which means the heat will permeate through the soil very fast, and keep the loops temperatures closer to the average soil temperature around them, which is about 72 degrees.  The 5 loops will be fed by a manifold station, which will attach to the geothermal unit through 1 1/4 inch pipe buried 4 feet underground.  The whole assembly is permanently fusion welded together, and is warranted for 50 years.  From the prices I am seeing, and the way the contract is written, I am guessing the loop field is about 35 percent of the cost of the entire system, and I am getting 1/3 back from Uncle Sam for the entire cost of the system.  So essentially, with the federal tax rebate (credit), I am getting a geothermal heat pump with state of the art everything from a top notch certified installer at the same cost as a mid level air source air conditoner with a crappy warranty from a crappy installer...

The geothermal unit runs at about 1/2 of the amperage of the traditional system for the same amount of BTU output, gives us free hot water in the summer, heats our water in the winter for domestic use and radiant floor, and supplies backup hot air in the radiant floor can't keep up.  It will (or should) outlast a traditional air conditioner by a factor of 2 or 3, runs much quieter, and has the capability of dehumidifying the air much better than a traditional A/C unit, because the inside coil runs physically colder than a traditional unit.  I can also supplement the water heating with my solar water heater, and the electrical compressors and fans with photovoltaic solar (can't do that with propane heat...)  OH, and no outside unit making noise or taking up space...  I think these things are win win win win win... 

I was actually expecting the HVAC guys to go next, but today we decided to go ahead and have the electrical "boxed" out so they can make things more symetrical around can lights and such...  So, I have to switch gears again...

Hope all is well...

Have a good day!

Quatrefoil Window... IN!!

Don't have much time, so I will try to ramble much less than normal...

Long story short, our first meeting with the stucco/stone/cantera guys got cancelled this morning because some lunatic ran a red light and almost killed him and his crew... They were fine, but shaken up a bit.  We are happy to arrange that for a later date.

Ok, so I was tired of looking at the quatrefoil window in my garage, so I decided to install it today while we were waiting around doing other stuff.  I have no idea why I was waiting, and it's not  urgent, but I thought the time available in my day about matched the job.  For once I was right...

The window was cut from a material called AZEK, which is a cellular PVC material that is pretty much a soft workable plastic.  It was powder coated in Bahama Brown, and then fitted with a double pane tempered glass.

The opening is 11 inches deep, but the window is only 4 9/16" deep from the flange to the back frame of the window.  The idea here is to deep recess the window so that the stucco guys can form a 3 dimensional carved stucco return back to the window.  This I think will make a great feature on the front of the house.  It's really a cool shape. 

Here we go...  First, I added blocking all around the window accounting for the thickness of the plywood surrounds, so that the window would project into the room 1/2 inch, which is the thickness of the concrete backer board.  This will allow them to tile right up and around the window, and even inside the thing if we want.  This thing was a complete pain in the ....  to flash, so I won't even get into those details, but 3 steps gradually smaller, and the window is getting rain on the outside and a shower on the inside. 

I cut out some scrap 3/4 plywood, which was thicker than I needed, but free.  Scribed the window, and then cut out the quatrefoil.  Then I did this again.  Here is a test fit.

Now, I used window wrap to "face" the plywood on the exterior.  This stuff makes a mess out of a knife, it's like cutting partially dried glue.

Test fit the window...then walk away so you can take a picture, then realize you are really stupid for leaving the window up there attached to nothing... geez.

Caulk the window flange, caulk the plywood to the opening... heck, just caulk everything.  I used 2 entire tubes.  Flash the crap out of everything, and then caulk and flash some more.  Step back and take another picture.

From this picture you can see how deep the window is recessed.  I think it's 8 inches from the face of the ICF back to the window.

Cool shape and shadows on the inside. 

Finished shot on the inside. Only thing I am unhappy about is that the finished window only sits back 3/8 of an inch rather than 1/2 inch on the inside. I guess that will make a little crack that we can just caulk.

Now, for some nastiness...  Since I had the wheelbarrow out there (and a flat shovel), figured I would quickly scoop out the grime that had accumulated in the shower stalls.  They are the low point in the house during ICF and framing, and sawdust, nails, dirt, water, and all kinds of nastiness ends up in there.  I want them to dry out so we can clean them up.  2 entire loads of slop came from just 4 shower stalls.  It reminded me of growing up on a hog farm, where I shoveled this same consistency of material that smelled a lot worse, thousands of tons of it!!  (Ok, I maybe exaggerate a bit there, but it motivated me through college)

Glad to have that out of the house...but where do you put it??  It's watery slop that's full of nails...

One more thing.  I didn't give adequate credit to my lovely bride for shoveling out the remains of the concrete washout and hauling all that off.  They know her by name now at the dump.  Our board pile is starting to look realistic again...

Have a great week....  Aloha  ;-)

Some more plumbing...

Plumber ended up coming pretty late on Friday, and then again on Saturday.  They got the majority of the rough in work completed.  I didn't have the shower valves yet to rough in.

Here are a couple pictures of my manifold design, and their work...

The hot is red, cold is blue.  The whole assembly feeds from the left (from 1 inch lines), and the water passes through the manifolds and continues on to the other side of the house to the Master manifolds.  The small black manifold with the 4 blue lines is actually a return loop from a reverse osmosis system, which feeds to 4 places, both refrigerators and R/O faucets in each island.  The plastic manifold will hold up much better against the caustic effects of the R/O water, which is pretty corrosive.  The manifold doesn't have any valves, but I can shut down the entire R/O system from it's feed.

Any place you see a valve that is not in use is because we planned a couple of spares in case the valves fail or in case we need to add a fixture down the road.  I had not planned for a garage sink, but they plumbed one in, and fortunately I had the valves for that.

The gap from one hot manifold to the smaller hot manifold is designed to accept a Grundfos Hot water recirc pump, which I already own, but is in use in my current house.  I just measured the pump, and installed a blank section with a union so I can add the pump when we move in.  That pump "forwards" hot water to the far end of the house, and also to the island sinks, so that the water is already hot when you turn it on.  A side effect of this is that the manifolds themselves become precharged with hot water, so an individual user only has to wait for the hot water to come from the manifold, and not all the way from the hot water tanks (in the garage).  Most people run these pumps on a timer, so they don't consume energy and hot water all day long... BUT, my lighting control system will actually be in charge of that duty.  It will know when any bathroom or kitchen is in use by knowing the status of it's lighting.  So any time a bathroom or kitchen is in use, the lighting control system will activate a relay that powers the pump... Simple and efficient.

The manifold sits directly over the top of a glulam beam over the rec room, which otherwise would be in the way.  By being right on top of the beam, the plumbers could go either north or south of that beam without having to cut the beam, and also keeps things nice and tidy.  We are looking at the tubing headed North from the manifold.  My only problem here is that one of these bays I think gets a can light.  So we will probably have to move some things a little here...  I'm not sure how close a can light can be to plastic pipe, but I doubt the two get along very well...

Quiz time.  Anybody see a problem here??  I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they just didn't have the right connector to make the jog over.  This is the power room sink.  Also, when you are checking over your plumbing, make sure the drain and vent system has purple primer and glue at every joint.  Otherwise, it's not glued together...

By stubbing out all the sinks and toilets with the copper, we have a secure connection point that will (hopefully) never need to be serviced.  The supply valve itself will probably be a compression fitting to the copper with a 1/4 turn stop.  I may consider using a solder connection with a fitting to 1/2 inch pipe thread, but not sure.

This is how the islands are fed.  The PEX comes down through the kitchen wall, and into the conduit that they put in place prior to the concrete pour.  OH, the two blue lines there are R/O lines.  I put that conduit in myself just in case they needed the extra space.  I guess they did...  You can see the pipes sticking out of the concrete in the distance.

Pex manifold systems give you the advantage of being able to shut down any fixture that is giving you issues.  For example, your master shower valve has gone bad, so rather than shut down the whole house while waiting for a new valve, you can simply take that fixture out of service with a 1/4 turn of the appropriate manifold valve... 

Also, say your 16 year old daughter is taking an amazingly long shower.  Well, you don't have to "end" her shower, but you can certainly "end" her "hot" shower.  This is another reason to keep the master bathroom manifolds out of reach of your children, as eventually they will demand revenge.

OH, and never, under even emergency circumstances, attempt to cut short a wife's shower.  Her lack of hot water makes for too much hot water for you...

In the Master area now, actually right on the rear wall behind the master toilet.  There will be a cabinet there, and I figured we could just put a little access door in the cabinet to get to these manifold.  Well, they put the cold way over to one side from the hot, so now I am thinking two doors.  I swear if I'm not standing right there, this is the kind of stuff that happens.  The manifolds were supposed to be right next to each other.  Oh, the blank valves also need some pex run from them and up into the attic, and then terminated with a plug.  If somebody were to accidently open that little valve, the wall would get blasted with water.

This is one of the tricky things about working with ICF.  The foam has to be cut away to make access channels for plumbing and electrical.  In this case, you can see the drain for a sink, with it's vent above, and then the pex lines coming from the supply (left) to the two master shower valves, as well as another sink.

Picture above here... This is the master shower.  If you zoom in, you can see they crammed the pex around the corner there pretty good, and then jammed a nail guard pretty hard over the top of things.... hmmmm...

Ok, another quiz.  I debated showing this to you, but somebody out there needs to know...  You CAN NOT kink pex tubing and leave it that way.  It greatly weakens the wall of the tubing, and someday can burst.  The red pipe here has been kinked, and still is kinked.  Pex is amazingly tough, but the stress in a kinked joint is more than it can handle.  There are two ways to deal with this.  Heat it up with a heat gun and work it back to shape, or replace the line.  I want to replace this line with another section of red... But, that would require me to open the last box of red 1/2 inch (300 feet) just for this bitty thing.  You can use the blue instead, because the blue and red PEX is exactly the same, but I am OCD about things like that... red is hot, blue is cold...  But that's 100 dollars worth of pex... grrrrr.  Oh, the other option is to put a splice in the pex with an inline coupling, but I would like to keep the connections inside walls to an absolute minimum...

I'll say it again.... Grrrrrrrrr.

My opinion about PEX pipe, though... Amazing.  Way better than cpvc, which I wouldn't even consider in an outhouse.  Copper is pretty good, but I think pex wins in the end (without factoring cost) because it is quieter, more resistant to chemicals, and the connections are very good.  Copper connections can appear fine, but water hammer can actually work a poor connection loose.  When you factor in the advantages of a manifold, cost saving of pex over copper, and the ease of installation, then pex is the hands down winner.  Now, that all being said, there are some union plumbers up north that just ain't going to ever like pex, because they have been using copper, and they get paid by the hour...

Tomorrow we are meeting with a painter, and also a stone/stucco/cantera guy.  I need to get some sleep.

One of our local Road Runners.  We love these guys because they eat snakes.... copperheads in our case are plentiful...

Plumbing and waiting

Well, my plumber has had a bad week.  A family emergency and a mechanical problem. 

Gave us a day to go look at shower fixtures, though.  Plumber likes Moen, Delta, and Kohler.  We don't really want to spend a whole ton of money on these things, but get decent ones at the same time.  Wife doesn't like the Delta ones that offer a separate temperature set knob...but Delta has made their products better in some regards, and offer a very wide variety of price range.  Moen... rock solid valves but I have medium confidence in the spray pattern.  Kohler has great valves, but even Kohler has some pretty cheap trim now so you have to watch what you are getting.  Anyway, if you spend a bunch of money on these things, you are essentially paying for a better, heavier piece of trim...  And since the jury is out on the actual pattern of the heads...  who knows if you will like the thing, and then you can't really change brands because the valve dictates what trim will fit it...

OH, and add the expense of a adjustable shower bar for the kids and guest...  Holy fish oil!!  I think instead we will just use normal shower systems with a simple head, and then use a drop ell extension to get the actual heads down at their altitude...

My soldering skills have improved... Check this out...

So, from left to right, the water comes up the wall in 1 inch PEX, then into the brass ProPex fitting, and through a Union-valve-filter-union around another corner, and then one last valve before turning up into the next wall to supply the entire house.

I have the copper going slightly downhill here... Why, because it just is, that's why...stop being so critical.  I tried to be really careful, because as you assemble the different parts, you have to plan ahead on which joints get soldered and in what order and in relation to the ones that need pipe dope and screwed...  I used the heavier gage copper pipe for all this mess.  It's pretty easy to see why the world is fast switching away from the use of copper... This process is a pain in the butt.  Pex is much faster, and simpler, and probably better in most regards down the road.  There will be some more copper in the house, as basically all the plumbing surrounding the 3 water tanks have the potential to get north of 200 degrees with the solar, so I am staying away from Pex there...  The supply manifolds are all copper 1/4 turn shutoff valves, and any stubouts will transition from pex back into copper.

The Bluebonnets are out all over Texas.  They are just everywhere all over the roads.  A very nice time to be in Texas and the weather has been stunning.

But, the fireants and copperheads are thick.

This is a Longhorn cow that lives over by the subdivision entrance.  My wife took this picture and he turned around to look at her, and made a face at her to indicate his disgust with her acting like a tourist with a camera...  I think he voted for Obama (cows are socialists and they want free veterinarian care, higher taxes, and a better union), but with Acorn out of the picture for the next election...watch out cows!

OK, hopefully more progress tomorrow.  If anybody has a brand name shower system that they do NOT like...chime in.  Need to get those ordered...