Hydronic Manifold for cooling - or what todo about insulation

BirchwoodBill

I have new personal retirement house in the works. Planning on running insulated hePEX tubing from the FCU (Jaga Designs) to a hydronic manifold located in the mechanical room. Trying to figure out which manifold to buy and how to insulate it to avoid condensation. Looking for suggestions. I was going down the Caleffi path as they have insulated shells for the Discal units. But no insulated shells for Caleffi manifold unless I speak Italian and can import them from the EU. Heat Link offers an insulation shell for their manifolds but is difficult to source, i.e., I am not worthy.

Some companies says they do radiant cooling but don’t offer an insulated shells for their manifolds. Was going to follow Hot Rods advice and mount a manifold vertically and then practice Origami with KFlex or Armacell—a closed cell product without interfering with the controls (Linear-X). But is there another manifold with an insulated shell I should be considering?

Kaos

Manifolds are too complicated to insulate properly. Maybe on the other side of the pond they sell somehting that comes with an insualted shell, but I doubt you'll find something here.

Anything DIY is asking for trouble as any exposed metal will sweat. The simpler option is to keep the FCU off the manifold and have a 3 way valve toggle between heating and cooling. You want chilled water to flow through the fewest pieces possible. If if this a split system, you can even shorten the runs by mounting the pump box to the FCU and branching off for heat from there. You might also want to plumb the FCU as direct to load so you don't have to deal with insulating the secondary loop circulator.

hot_rod

I don’t know of a supplier that carries the Caleffi insulation in the U.S.

Most all the euro sourced manifolds have insulation options. Try Googling some options.

The pre formed insulation are the best option if you want a nice serviceable manifold insulation.

I see Caleffi jackets on UK and other overseas Amazon sites.