make my own radiant manifold.

thikol2100

I'm building a new shop and going to use in slab hydronic closed loop heat, with 4 300 ft 1/2 inch raupex was going to use pro balance manifold a plumber friend said he saves couple hundred by making his own manifold. Is this wise? I wonder about turbulence from soldered tees causing flow problems and air purging difficulty also no flow meters but that shouldn't be much of a problem since I am only doing 4 loops on one zone. Told me not to use compression fittings they are unreliable to only use pro pex to connect to manifold.
Thoughts?

Zman

You can make your own or buy a simple premade copper header. You want to be sure your loops are very close in length (~10%) and you won't need balancers. Installing isolation valves on the loops will make purging easier and allow you to isolate a loop if you have an issue. Turbulence will not be an issue with the flow rates of a radiant system.

I like pro pex and have the tools. If you are only making 8 connections, I would not run out and buy the tools. Compression connections work just fine.

thikol2100

Thanks. Are sharkbits out of the question? I saw a complete system built with sharkbits it wasn't running yet.

Zman

Please don't do that. Have your plumber friend hook this up for you and make sure it is running safely.