Wanted....

Unknown

Mark. I've got what you're looking for.

With friends like this...

The electronic equipment I have only begun to use, have become my most productive tools in getting things done for my small business. By using the web and email for many of my business relations I’m able to spend far less time in the field and more time developing smarter and faster ways to solve problems, all sitting in a warm and comfortable climate year-round.

The internet is a powerful business tool. Since I began advertising there, I’m able to filter out the jobs that look like trouble. I will usually only take on a job when I find it has some appealing characteristic, something important. Something worthy of sticking in my portfolio just to say Yeah, I’ve done that. This was not one of those jobs. This was a job that I wanted no part of in any way. All of my instinctive defense alarms went off. As it came to pass, it turns out It was a job that nobody wanted to deal with. Too many people had their hands in this cookie jar. However, it did appeal to my sensitive side, the side I try to repress for fear of losing my shirt. I really felt bad for these people once I learned their story and began to know them as human beings. That usually gets me into trouble. Since this job was more than a couple of hours away, I had to do my homework before we got in the truck and went to the job site.

Like I said, I normally wouldn’t take a job like this but I’ve always been a sucker for a challenge and I figure hey, if I can help these guys out they won’t tell all their friends that radiant heating isn't worth it & radiant heating is trouble.

Two plus hours away and in another state they came to me. When I heard what these people had to say I just had to see it with my own eyes.

The owners had been having problems with their newly installed radiant heating system. The system was completed but didn’t work. They wanted someone who knew about radiant heat. More importantly, they needed someone who would be willing to deal with their botched system and do their best to make it "at least warm the floor a little." They were apologetic about what had transpired before I was called in, and admitted that they didn’t know how complicated radiant heating systems could be until' it was far too late. They had made mistakes along the way, many mistakes. I was about to unveil the absolute worst radiant heating job I have ever seen in my entire career.

Do you ever wonder where homeowners go to get help for their heating woes? Where do they turn? These folks being computer savvy found Dan Holohan’s venerable Wall discussion forum. They posted a plea for help and were bombarded with all sorts of suggestions from Dan’s elite group of professionals known as “The Wallies” One actually suggested they "get out the jackhammer." The owners called and pleaded with me to help them with their situation as winter was nearly upon them.

The heating contractor for this installation was a “friend” of the owner’s who had since packed-up and moved out of state. He had worked together with a sales Rep for the radiant piping system & boiler. Once the friend realized he was in over his head, the Rep was nowhere to be found after the equipment was sold, the owners ended up calling in a local heating & cooling company to finish the job. This company assured them that they knew radiant heating systems. The owners have now realized that they didn't know very much about radiant heat after all. Their company has not been able to help them any further than finishing the installation of a system that still didn’t work. I was truly amazed by the fact that everyone who had a hand in this had been paid in full.

As I drove up to the 1,500 Sq./Ft. home, I noticed that there was a 4” galvanized steel pipe coming out right next to a window with an elbow looking upward. It looked a bit unsightly but, hey that’s me. On top of the elbow was a vent termination commonly used for a clothes dryer. I saw steam coming out so I assumed they were just drying clothes. Inside the house I followed a noticeable rumbling sound to the boiler. I find this vent connected to an atmospheric boiler installed on the floor of a small bathroom. A squirrel cage power vent fan connected to this 4” flue pipe which ran continuously. It sounded as if a Chinook helicopter were hovering over the boiler at all times. The boiler vent termination was connected to their clothes dryer vent. Crammed in beside the boiler was an indirect hot water tank. What I discovered is beaund comprehension.

When I rested my hand upon the (dripping with green flux) copper pipe I got a small jolt of electricity. That's strange, I thought so I find the circuit breaker panel and flip off the power. Pulling the cover off of the zone valve control box I look inside. Looks kind of like a box full of colorful spaghetti with meat sauce I thought, as I began to unravel the mussed wires I notice that there is no grounding (green) conductors. Better find a good ground I thought, removing the cover to the main power switch and looking inside. I could see no green or bare conductors whatsoever. When I reached in the box to pull out the wires I got hit with line voltage. Ouch! Knowing that I had already turned off the power at the breaker and double checked it with my multi meter, I wondered how this could be? Using my meter I find that a stray red wire is still live and cut off in the rear of the box with no wire nut or protection whatsoever. Why do I have two hot wires in here? I thought, the cause of my shock was well, shocking. Removal of the main circuit breaker panel cover revealed why I had been electrified. The 15 amp circuit breaker to the boiler was in fact, switched off. However, the other red conductor within the 12/3 romex sheath was connected to yet ANOTHER circuit breaker. A 30 amp breaker to boot. All done in 12 AWG wire!!! Same romex cable, different breakers. Can you say dangerous? I wanted to call the Fire Dept. right away when I couldn’t find a single ground wire within the entire electrical panel. The whole house was without a single ground other than the neutral grounded conductors somehow finding their way to an earth ground. What the owners “friend” did was CUT EACH & EVERY green or bare conductor off at the sheath. Some friend I thought. No wonder the lights would dim whenever the garbage disposal was turned on. I am still amazed that anything worked at all electrically. Furthermore, all of the low voltage wiring was contained within this same BX sheath!

I called in a licensed electrician to make the house safe right away before I would proceed any further. He spent the day fixing all of the mistakes he felt made the house unsafe. A HUGE bill was passed onto the owners.

Back to the bathroom I find 7 sets of of 1/2” PEX radiant tubing coming up through the concrete over-pour right next to the toilet and connected to a telestat zoned manifold. Telestat wires were not connected. Strange to see a radiant manifold being used as a toilet paper roll holder, I thought. There were only four small rooms in the entire house. Where do the tubes go? I wondered. “My friend took some pictures of the tubing," said the owner. “I’ll have them emailed to you tonight.” I left that afternoon not knowing if it was even possible to salvage this train wreck.

When I first downloaded these pictures of the tubing installation onto my computer, Cheryl (my fiance) looked over my shoulder and said “Oh my God. Who the **** did that!?” Until that day, I had never heard the term “light bulb ends” when describing a tubing layout 12” on center. PEX C was used. There was no rhyme nor reason to the bizarre weave of patterns we saw. Sloppy work can not begin to describe what is buried under these poor folks floors. However, I saw something encouraging in those pictures that no one else did. There were seven loops. The runs were not that long I thought. It was just then that I knew I could heat this space. Sure, there would be a bunch of spots on the floor that would never get warm. There would be major striping effects on the floors but this simply could not be avoided.

Keep in mind, no insulation was used under their slab. Neither was any used around the perimeter. Upon suggestion of one of the Wallies; (HeatingHelp.com) the owners spent a few days digging a three foot trench around their foundation and buried foam-board along their exterior walls. Still, six full inches of concrete was exposed vertically to the elements at and below the floors elevation invert.

The floor had never got warm in any area of the house except in front of and around the toilet. On a call for domestic hot water, for some strange reason, the floor in front of the bathroom/mechanical room got warm. Ghost flow perhaps? Simply put, the system could never work as it was built.

What I proposed was a bit drastic. The boiler had to go. It didn’t meet the code anyway being an atmospheric boiler in a confined space sucking oxygen. My heat loss estimate showed I would need a boiler nearly double that of that which was provided, due to the lack of insulation and expansive single pane windows all along the front of the house. The owners also had a young toddler in the house. Getting the boiler with it’s flexable gas connector up off the floor and out of reach of the toddler just seemed like a good idea. Code is code. Common sense is another thing.

Sealed combustion was the only choice if we were to keep the heating system in the small 1/2 bathroom. Because they would be using lots more fuel than they should just to stay warm, I felt a wall hung high efficiency condensing heat source would be the most appropriate. Unfortunately, some of that energy would be wasted to unwanted turf conditioning and subterranean dirt warming.

I chose a proven wall hung condensing European heat source boiler. I have found that the Europeans heating equipment are the most efficient in all the world. They are 10-15 years ahead of any competing manufacturer. Efficient and reliable. Some US manufacturers claim the same efficiency and reliability. The fact remains that nearly all of their componants are built overseas. All of their major components are made in Europe. Sad but true. They are in the process of testing their Beta units on us; the American public.

You can view these people’s desperate plea for help by pasting this URL into any web browser. http://forums.invision.net/Thread.cfm?CFApp=2&Thread_ID=9801&mc=15

After nearly one year has passed I was informed that that an addition was to be built up against their house. They were so comfortable with their warm floors that there was no other choice. They wanted radiant floor heat in their new addition which includes about 900 SQ Ft. of additional space.

PROBLEMS:
The heat source is over 90 feet away routed through a trench shared by plumbers, electricians and the gas utility.

Let's just say, there is no barrier we can't overcome. Once you have basked in radiant comfort; it's the only way you ever want to feel in your own home.

Gary W. Wallace
Wallace Radiant Design
Natick, MA
e.mail: garywwallace@hotmail.com



Wallace Radiant Design

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ScottMP

AAHHHHHH ...

We have a winner !!

Wait .. the blue pipe goes to the .... and the white comes from .... uuuhhhmm.

I got it, thats the machine that goes PING.

What a mess

Scott

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thp_7

Steve

You know how school boards work. The water is gone now. Good thing all the walls and floor are cement.

Paul Rohrs_4

Owner/GC didn't want to spend $$$$ on an electrician

So here is what he did. Notice the burn marks on the cord? I had to pull it out from underneath the firebox.



Regards,

PR

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Tony Conner_2

Over 100 Years Later...

... and it's STILL happening. This one was earlier this year in South Carolina, and the operator was killed in the explosion.

Tony Conner_2

Over...

... 100 years later, and it's STILL happening. This shot is from a boiler explosion in South Carolina earlier this year, and the operator was killed.