Homemade Dry Systems?

Bart Vaio

Use any adhesive below the ply? With the quiltrak we use 10 screws per panel and thats it. We are overlaying with 3/4" x 3 1/4" solid oak so it should be able to span like Subray.

Bart Vaio

Homemade Dry Systems?

Have any of you tried a homemade dry system with 1/2" pex and plywood sandwich? We do alot of quiktrac which is very costly for the material but I wanted to try this for my own home. watts subray looks similar I believe.. Thoughts?

heatboy_27

I have miles and miles.........

..... of my own style "dry" system installed over the past 15 years. I have used Wirsbo, Viega, Roth, Radiant Technology and Mr. PEX in these systems with no issues whatsoever.

Unknown

sandwich systems can be much cheaper in material than prefab panels, and outperform most of the prefabs as well (Roth, Raupanel, and Warmboard being notable exceptions), but are more labor to install.

Light plates should use PEX-AL-PEX tubing to eliminate expansion noise. Thermofin U plates from radiant engineering, or other heavy gauge plates can use regular pex.

We recommend 9" o.c. with 5-6" wide lightweights and 7" o.c. for the narrower heavy gauge plates. with heavy gauge plates we recommend a "rabet" in the plywood infill that allows the plate to sit flush with the top of the infill.

and we always recommend aluminum on top of the infill. I don't see the point of putting any extra wood over the top of the aluminum

Mad Dog_2

Are you kidding??????

With the cost of those products, we "made-our-own" a LONG time ago...like Heatboy....miles and miles...achieves the same goals. Mad Dog

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Terry Larsell

I use thin fin C, 3/4" cdx and build the whole system before I put any tube down. Pex al pex goes in last. Running pex, wood, and plates all at the same time turns into nightmare. I cut stacks of 7 1/4" and smaller quantitys of 6 1/4" with precut in and out bends. If you need to make up some inches to get back at the end you start throwing down some 6 1/4".
I find floor installers or carpenters to help out and they pick it right up. Next time I'm going to get one of those palm nailers with the rubber tip for pounding in the tube.

I still prefer gypecrete but sometimes a built system fits the job better.

Terry

Bart Vaio

Are transfer plates

Necessary? We are planning 1/2" pex, design temp will never drop below 32 deg. (Nor Calif), fluid temp's will vary with outdoor reset, not to exceed around 135. Shooting for about 15/20 btu sq. ft. r-22 in 2x10 joist bays below over crawlspace. Do transfer plates just aleviate thermal striping, or do they contribute to heat transfer? What about 4 inch wide aluminum flashing below the tube similar to quiktrak?

Unknown

If you want 20 BTUs/sq ft, you want plates. Otherwise your water temps will be hotter than you want.

flashing below the tube is a bad idea for quik trak, and it's a bad idea here too.