Radiant buyers comfort zone - Dale

Dale

Looked at a radiant heated condo few days ago, 8 units 4up and 4down. Price was at 189K and wouldn't sell, down to 179k which is very good for this area. Still not selling. What was wrong was all the buyers are afraid of the radiant system. 8 years old, gyp pour 2 zones. Only radiant in this building, all others HBB from 2 Burnhams in basement, nice system with tekmar resets. Condo was vinyl in kitchen and tile in baths and carpet everywhere else. I was asked will it work and how reliable is it? Carpet had padding and boiler temp was not mixed. I asked for the carpet and pad details and no one had them. Couldn't determine the design mix with baseboard to 7 units and RH to one from 2 boilers, no mixing valve in mech room. And, seemed that the tubing manifolds, was OB pex, set water flow rate to change water temp to vinyl and tile areas. So, got this message back,

Hi Dale,
Thanks for your help the other day. I decided to not go ahead with it. The system probably works fine, but the fact that there is basically no documentation on anything makes me very uncomfortable.

Wonder what this does for future choice of radiant by anyone involved. I think if the original installer contractor or condo owner had keep good records about control, tube layout and carpet insul value this might have been a sale. Also if this had been winter the system could have been demonstrated. Sad when a system that cost more originally and should bring a premium is blocking the sale. I think this is a good reason for contractors to keep their own complete book on systems, the carpet and padding is the tougher call.

Mi39ke_2

sounds familiar...

if I'm not mistaken, it is the same system that has been haunting us...just got a fax from the owner, he is looking to change the unit from radiant to HWBB because he can't sell it. Maybe you are the engineer he said came over to look at it?

Basically, it was a DIYer installation by a professional gypcrete and tubing company. Friend of the family, you know. We installed the rest of the system (HWBB) and they did the radiant. I still have some pictures of the tubing install and they did a good job, in my opinion.

The 4-way mixing valve is external to the boiler room for the rad floor and he added a tekmar control and ESBE head to automate things this year. He previously adjusted the 4-way valve by-hand during the winter, which was a trick, as the rest of the system is simplistic and hard to balance because it isn't reverse-return and it was designed on a very strict budget.