Water Supply In Outside Wall - Radiant Loop In Wall ?

JudeNY

In a new addition, the kitchen water supply is on an outside wall for about 9'. The floor is hydronic radiant in plates. I can easily continue a pex loop from the floor into the 4" wall stud space, without plates, next to 6' of the water supply. Will this do anything to protect the water supply pipes from freezing ? The stud space will be insulated.

Mark Wolff

Depends

If the heating loop is running all the time (rarely does this occur) you might get by with it. Otherwise, your kitchen cold water will probably run more than your heating pipes, and you might freeze the heat pipes first. If the exterior wall is insulated, just leave it. If in doubt add pipe insulation to the 9' of dom. cold water piping (1/2" to 1" walled insulation).

If by some wonderful chance you are running glycol in your heat tubing, then by all means run it up in the wall, it will add a relatively minor btu increase even with minimal cycling.