Best Of
Re: Estimated life expectancy?
Just had to start with your heat pump WH baloney didn't ya.
😉
ChrisJ
Re: Bathroom Remodel - Some Basic Insulation Questions for Radiant Floor
@smore1945 : " I haven't done a full manual J but chatgpt helped me come up with about 900 BTU/hr, but that number presumed adequate insulation in the floor."
@yellowdog: "I think 28 sq ft of heated floor will have a hard time heating 400 cu ft of air space."
The only thing that will determine the heating load is the amount of surface area exposed to the exterior, what that exterior is made of, and the outside temperature. If the floor below is heated, insulation in the floor has no impact on the heating load. The volume of the room really isn't relevant, the room could be exposed on five sides or it could be entirely internal with no outside exposure.
OP said there's an existing forced air heating system. In addition to calculating the heating load, I'd also look at what's there to get a ballpark of what the current heating supply is. I'd also do a fuel-use calculation to sanity-check the heating load calculation.
If the source of the heat is going to be an electric water heater, I agree with the other posters who said just use an electric mat under the tile. It will use exactly the same amount of electricity, and is far easier to install. You don't have to worry about floor height. No pumps, no expansion tank, no running plumbing, no leaks, no purging. No flow calculations. Just turn it on and it works.
Re: Burner technicians -what’s going on in this industry?
Unfortunately this is what we've become as a society, after decades of "you have to go to college or you'll end up like him" rhetoric. These white collar "educators" don't understand that the majority of blue collar workers make a better living than they do, and still look down on them with disdain. My high school experience made me feel like I would end up under an overpass if I didn't get some sort of college degree and even after a 5 year union pipefitter apprenticeship, was still meant to feel like I was somehow ruining my life by being a lowly construction worker. It still happens today, if I'm being honest. I actually took a lot of pride in my work and learning what makes things tick, so I was a foreman as a 21 year old apprentice with guys triple my age working under me who still couldn't sweat a joint or cut a thread- those same guys refusing to take orders from "the stupid kid". I was the youngest guy on site by a decade for a long time before younger guys started coming in again, and honestly I felt like the younger guys coming in were better at their job than the older guys for the most part. Maybe it was the whole "old dogs and new tricks" thing, but there were countless retirement age guys who'd been pipefitter for 40+ years and barely knew which end of a wrench to grab and that still hasn't changed. I'm 36 now and run my own business, but am still met pretty regularly with the vibe that I couldn't possibly know what I'm doing because I'm just a dumb kid. Obviously we always have more learning to do but I think a large portion of tradespeople are too arrogant, lazy, or dumb to learn anything new and that's why we're seeing this incompetence. It may not always be the technician's fault, but their employers who send out a new hire who's never even seen an oil boiler before to a job where they're required to service an oil boiler. By themselves. A few weeks ago I was installing a boiler and the plumbers from a big name company showed up, both of them under 21, to connect a 4 port gas manifold to 4 runs of CSST hanging in the room. It took 2 guys 3 hours to do a job that I could do alone in 10 minutes, but it was apparent that nobody had ever taught either of them how to do what they were sent there to do. I tried to help at one point and the arrogant punk got snotty with me so I let them do it their way.
GroundUp
Re: Burner technicians -what’s going on in this industry?
Another problem that I have witnessed is when a call sheet or daily assignments are piled on the tech. Too many calls are assigned in a day to too few techs. The tech then decides to take short cuts to get to the next job and the next and the next etc.
Dispatchers who have never been in the field will over book and push the younger techs to do more. This has hurt our industry and is one reason I would suspect that @Northuupthere had this problem with the younger and older techs. to his house.
Intplm.
Re: Estimated life expectancy?
At the very least you could do the preplanning. 1) Find a good contractor in your area (use the search on this site). 2) Check your boiler sizing relative to the connected radiation sqft edr.
Re: Is my plumbing wrong
To me this looks like a Union Elbow from a Trane Vapor System. They are usually found at the return side of the radiators, they have orifices .
109A_5
Re: Excessive Water Hammer / Knocking trying to find source
Thanks @tcassano87 can you be specific on what is wrong in the photos? I'm a novice when it comes to this.
I called the people who installed the boiler, and they are coming out to address it tomorrow, but I would to be more specific than "just the homeowner"
