Best Of
Re: Chilling me softly with
There is a lot of variety in Utah, we are 40 minutes from mountain lakes and reservoir.
The Little Sahara
desert, salt flats, and the redrock southern Utah. Come and visit sometime.

Re: Well pump issues
Deep well jet pumps can be a bit of a hassle to set up at times, as your brother/you are experiencing.
Some of what you are describing suggests the jet is plugged or partially plugged down in the well. The pump can only show a low pressure when this happens. The tail piece on the jet cannot be lengthened to more than 25 or 30ft to the foot valve.
Does the jet have a tail piece? Was any piping changed? Was the regulator at the pump adjusted to accommodate the jet down in the well? Is there a regulator at the pump? Or are they using a regular valve, like a ball or gate valve, to regulate the water discharge to the jet? Seems to me the regulator is out of adjustment after the service call and needs to be corrected by the company that did the work.
As to the thoughts expressed above about the water level/water table. That could very well be. He could have lost his well, meaning the water level has dropped, or, simply, that the well has been disturbed so much from the repairs that there is a lot of debris in the water, and the jet continues to get fouled by pumping that debris. If this is the case, he may just need to wait it out and let the debris settle.
If the water level has gone down and there is a short tail piece off of the jet or none at all, you can add one, extending the foot valve to twenty-five feet into the well and into the water. Either way, the regulator at the pump will need to be adjusted, and if adjustments do not satisfy the pump to get the pump up to pressure, the jet is probably plugged and will need to be pulled from the well and cleared.

Is internal circulator needed?
Existing boiler set up is a 1/25 hp Grundfos pump on primary loops and the boiler (80k btu, hangs on wall) is on a secondary loop. A T-branch runs a few feet to boiler and back to primary loop. The boiler has a small circulator inside the cabinet. The question is: if I replace this boiler with a boiler that does NOT have a circulator on this secondary loop, should I expect any problems getting heated water back to the primary loop? I'm planning on getting one with more btu per hour, approx 100k btu. Thank you so much!
Re: Which New Analyzer?
I forgot to mention that TruTech.com is the best place to buy, calibrate and repair. Give them "NCI2025" coupon and get extra discount
Re: new concrete slab with radiant heat that will be polished for finished flooring
Our new home has a polished concrete floor with radiant tubing. The walls are ICF so the foam provides a thermal break and expansion joint at the perimeter. The slab was poured on 3" of 25psi EPS foam for a thermal break to the ground below since we are in a northern climate. There is a 10 or 15 mil vapor barrier under the foam that was glued to the ICF perimeter wall and taped around all penetrations.
We debated placing saw-cut control joints and placed the PEX as low as possible to allow this option. The tooled control joints filled with polyurethane at our local WalMart look pretty bad so we took a chance and didn't cut any control joints. The floor is about 80' x 35' with 9 embedded column bases. It was in the late fall so we poured concrete mixed with hot water, I think it was 3500psi, no fiber mesh. I can't remember if they added any plasticizer. It stayed warm and very humid inside as the concrete cured. We had some minor cracking but only where the slab was restrained. For example, at the doors there was rebar from the footings folded back into the slab along with rebar out to the thermally broken threshold so when the concrete shrank we got some small cracks at the corner of a couple of the doors. There are also two doors where the concrete continues into the garage and into a mechanical room. We have some cracks there where the slab was continuous. It would have been better to place a control joint in those doorways that would have been covered by the door threshold. Around the perimeter there are gaps up to 1/4" or more in some places due to concrete shrinkage but these will be covered by drywall and baseboards.
Our initial plan was to use a mix with a larger black aggregate. This stone was crushed so they wanted a pump truck with a 3" hose. At the last minute we had to work with a smaller pump and they were afraid the larger crushed stone would jam it so we went with standard washed round stone, probably 3/4" if I recall. There is also a fair amount of smaller stone in the mix.
They hand floated pads at the screed depth and then used a vibrating power screed. We had hoped so see more of the large rock exposed after polishing but the vibra screed pushed the rock too far down. It would have required a lot more polishing to expose it. As a result, there are areas with good rock exposure and other areas that are more of a uniform grey. We also have some 'interesting' bonus features caused by small twigs and other items that were blown into the sand and rock used to mix the concrete.
The PEX was tied to a 2' grid of rebar. The rebar was placed on custom made 1" dobies to set it as low on the EPS foam as possible. The PEX was buried in the under slab foam from the manifold to the desired room in some cases. A 2" deep groove was cut with a hot knife, PEX inserted, the removed foam glued back in the groove above the PEX with spray foam and then trimmed flush. This same method was used to run 3/4" PEX to a central manifold. A piece of 3/4" PEX was slit and snapped over the 1/2" PEX in areas subject to damage. Buried PEX was brought up out of the foam in a piece of blue flexible conduit (smurf tubing). The entire system was pressurized to around 60psi before and during the concrete pour to make sure any damage was found and fixed.
Overall we are pleased with the floor even though it is not perfect.
Since the house is very thermally efficient it will not need much heat. The water to the floor will only need to be about 95F on our coldest design day of around 5F. The water temp is set by an LK outdoor reset on a mixing valve which seems to be working very well. In order to increase perceived comfort, the PEX was not placed on a continuous grid in most rooms. Instead, less PEX was placed in locations where people would most likely stand or be seated. This allows a higher water temperature in those localized areas so the concrete will hopefully be warm enough to feel the heat. I found a couple of articles online describing this approach. Here's a FLIR image taken as the system was initially warming up.
We polished the floor before any of the interior framing was built. This lowered the cost of the polishing but requires extra care during the rest of the build. The densified concrete seems quite durable but as @DCContrarian pointed out, you can damage it and any repairs will be difficult and filled in cracks will show.
Taco After Dark Goes LIVE – July 23 at 7PM EST
From our friends at Taco:
Taco After Dark LIVE – Summer Training Series
We’re reimagining training the Taco way—real talk, real installs, and real connection.
The all-new Taco After Dark: Summer Series kicks off
Wednesday, July 23 at 7 PM EST
Streaming LIVE on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube
Featuring Taco Trainers:
John Barba @John_Barba
Dave Holdorf @Dave H_2
Jason Kockx
On the Agenda:
- Pix From the Field sneak peek
- Real-time Q&A + audience chat
- Insightful slides—served with stories and humor
- Giveaways (👀 we’re looking at you, 007e)
No registration. No barriers. Just hydronic pros sharing real-world insight and having some fun. Click here for all of the details.
Re: 3 and 1 1/2 ton finally done
I put 10% in mine back in CT and then was a little miffed to see that the water temp never went below 40
I'll Fix It, Honey.
I've been working at a house where the husband is a mathematician/engineer. He was always the one that did the plumbing and electrical repairs in the house. He even did the work to repair any heating system problems. As he got older, fewer things got fixed. Slowly, the Honeywell zone valves stopped working and eventually, there was no heat in the house. The husband is now in a memory care facility and his wife has decided that she wants heat, so she called they only person - still alive - that worked on their system in the past - me.
I've replaced all the zone valves only to find out that none of the thermostats communicate with the controls in the boiler room. I suspect rats chewing through the wiring as they had a longtime vermin problem and I've replaced the old thermostats with Honeywell RedLINK wireless units.
All the old thermostats still work as does the transformer relay. They are so beautiful and I can't bring myself to throw any of them away.
Re: HTP Boiler humidity dislike + Error Code 11
^^ ^^ This!
Apparently, the plumber that you hired has lead you to believe that the WATER side of the heat exchanger needed cleaning. This was a mistake as that is rarely the case and it would not cause an ignition issue.
As stated, the FIRE side of the heat exchanger needs to be chemically cleaned as that heat exchanger is very prone to fouling due to the aluminum fins in it.

Re: Single Zone mini- labor grabber
When I realized that my son was not interested in taking over the family business, I made a deal with one of my employees. I would pay him his regular wage. what he was worth based on his experience. I would pay him 1/2 again as much that would be deposited in a escrow account. No records of that money as his income. Just $$$ sitting there. As it turns out I would retire in 20 years and he would have enough in the escrow account to buy me out and I would use that $$$ towards my retirement. (if the money ever got to a point where the tax folks would want to know about it, I would get the tax accountant and trust lawyers involved, but that never happened.) After 5 years of loyal service there comes this woman in his life and he moved to Florida. He forfeited that money when he quit. Nothing in writing yet so no harm no fowl.
We are still friendly.
About 15 years later I got a drunk dial from him in Florida. We talked for a while and at the end of the conversation he said: "If I had stayed in New Jersey, I would own your company today". We both laughed about it.
My brother had trouble selling his business when he wanted to retire. If he made better plans he could have been compensated more.
I would still be in business if I didn't end up with this disability that put me in this wheelchair, but I got lucky, Twice. In 2017 I offered to buy out a competitor that has a large customer base in beach front condos in a wealthy barrier island rresort community. Lots of service contracts. Lots or customers that can afford to pay. Good income stream. I offered to pay him his 7 figure asking price which included $100,000 in inventory on the books.
When he thought he has a sucker on his hands, he didn't accept and said that he had $80,000 in inventory that he just purchase for the upcoming season, so the price would be higher. When I showed him the original offer included $100,000 for the inventory from the previous years "due diligence" company books inspection, I said that is $20,000 less so my offer would be 20,000 lower… so he bailed.
I was then diagnosed with the incurable disability that would result with me confined to a wheelchair in the future. So the following year he asked again of I was still interested…. too late, you snooze you lose.
The second stroke of luck was a fuel oil dealer/HVAC/Plumbing contractor decided to stop delivering fuel oil, and his son wanted to expand the HVAC business to the next county (where I was located). Since a majority of my customers were oil heated homes with several different fuel dealers that I was also friendly with, I could not sell to a company that also operated a fuel deliver truck. But all the other competitors sisn't want any oil heat customer. I knew these plumbers from different trade shows and training classes for over 20 years and thought highly of them. so when they stoped selling oil and wanted to expand, I was able to sell them my service contracts inventore and rolling stock for a nice retirement fund amount. The stars were all aligned for me. (Except for the wheelchair thing)
I guess I am relating this story to you Gary, so you can prepare for your retirement in the event you don't have someone already lined up to take over when you get old like me. LOL
It is good to have the small business folks like us, just to keep the big mega companies from monopolizing the trades and keep the pricing reasonable…. Big business = big overhead = big pricing. Small business = small overhead = reasonable pricing. But don't under cut yourself. You should be able to charge what you are worth and make a nice living.