The Best and the Worst of Hydronics......hb

heatboy

September's issue of "This Old House" when it finally dawned on me how difficult it is for homeowners to make rational decisions on heating their homes. And why we have to work so hard to help them see the light. On page 195 there are two glossy, full color ads. The upper ad is for Viessmann Manufacturing and the lower ad is for Radiantec. That must mean they are both great companies producing outstanding products, right?

Maybe I should toss my Viessmann and buy a water heater. I'll have to give this some thought since I may have been doing it wrong all these years.

Like I said, the best and the worst of hydronics has to offer right there in full color.

hb

clammy

your right

Besides being caught up in this old house stuff and how everything is done in one epsoid .There all shopping around for price and think your price is to high and in the end your still servicing some one elses terrible install and all the existing promblems really didn't go away and there installer doesn't start up or service what they install or in some cases they call us at 300 in the after noon to come wire it and do the oil lines and start it up in some cases or better yet they call you in the middle of the nite for no heat and the boiler plugged why/Cause the guy just hooked it up it fired and that's that never checked smoke co or draft it's a great world out there .Just had one this week no hot water tank leaking and the 30 year old utica dry base boiler shot 3 years the boiler has been on it's last legs well they finally went for it no one in the shop and office could believe it there changing the units they really tryed to wittle us down on the price but we held our ground and i'll be installing a buderus boiler and a indirect tank .You can't win them all but some times even when you gey them the battle is not over they fight and complain about the price but with 2 new cars and a maid and house cleaner who do you think there tryingto fool peace and have a safe holiday weekend peace clammy

ernie_3

whew

talk about run-on gobbleygook

hr

Moneeeey!

money changes ev a ree thing (Cyndi Lauper)

Sources tell me an ad in that mag is very expensive.

Didn't This Old House once install a Radiantec system in a project? Or is that just a rumor?

hot rod

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Ted_8

No foresight

I am always amazed at the willingness of home owners, builders, and contractors to embed the cheapest crap they can in a structure so that the money can be reserved for the important stuff like counter tops and floor coverings. Things that can be easily upgraded down the road unlike wiring, piping, heating and cooling systems, even framing and insulation often take a back seat to the frilly stuff. The Kitec post that has been running is in my opinion a prime example. In my area it is the lowest price stuff and I suspect that there is a reason why. No thanks.

I once heard someone compare this to shopping for the best price on your heart surgery so that you could afford the nose job, if you survive!

The funny thing is that in the end doing it right only costs a few pennies more than doing it wrong. Sort of like Sally Struthers says, "For the cost of one cup of coffee a day".


Ted

Constantin

You're so right...

... and this is why I am driving my contractor to new levels of disbelief when I say that the house has to have function over form. Here is one example:

We have three nearly stacked bathrooms. The floor joists run from the center of the house out to the perimeter sills. In order to minimize the "massacring" of the joists, the plumbers proposed two drains instead of the single one that I had proposed. Not only did I heartily agree to this much better implementation (no cut joists = more floor strength) but I also had my contractor move shower drains and whatnot so that everything lined up in one floor joist bay each on either side of the rooms.

After all, so what if the shower drain is not in the center of the shower?

Other house features like the electrical panel in the hallway on the third floor hopefully will allow us to wire the house with a minimum of copper, easily maintain it, etc. even if it's not aesthetically pleasing to see a electrical panel in the middle of a hallway.

Coming back to heating systems, I never will understand folks who think they can cheat physics... DIY staple-up systems can have their place I just happen to think they don't have their place in my home. Some might label me a snob for going the tried and true approach of 3/8" tubing in the subfloor on 8" centers, but if the folks I respect on this board tell me that's the way to go, then I'd be crazy not to.

So the plumbing is done... HVAC and fire protection are next up. Let's see how we do...

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Funny you should mention a remote breaker box in an upper hall...

Note the use of an architect's rule to prop open the mirror.

jerry scharf_2

I'm not sure who to blame

Ted,

I actually understand how we got to the point that the lasting parts of the house no longer seem to matter. I don't agree, but I've had it explained to be enough times that it has sunk in.

Almost all home sales are made on emotion. I like to think of myself as rational, but when we bought our place it was mostly based on a good feeling and a sense of opportunity. We're on the second remodel and the house and lot bear no resemblance to what we bought. Others invest far less effort than we did in finding a good place, so emotion matters even more.

It's rare to find a buyer that cares about things that don't connect with them emotionally. There aren't enough people that care about the house and the systems, just the look and how that makes them feel. Take an old house with 70s shag carpet and wallpaper, it will have a hard time selling. Now get someone to put in new carpets, painted walls, a couple new lights and some rented furniture. Presto, it may be worth 10 or 20% more. So I expect little traction on spec houses in almost any sector. This is tainted by being in California. It may be different elsewhere, though the numbers don't seem to support that.

It's the custom houses/major remodels where the people plan to live there for decaded that bother me more. Is it the architect that cares more about a vision than owner comfort and operating costs? Is it the owners who are trying to look better off and will cut corners on things that don't show? Is it the fact that through the bidding process of generals and subs, that the horror stories of bad installs take on a larger than life fear? Is it the common wisdom that doors and counters are more important to resale value that heaters and wiring?

I don't really know what combination of things bring this about, but it seems like the place that the battle needs to happen. From the outside, it seem like a team-effort upsell during these projects to get people the comfort and operating efficiency they deserve is the way to go. Why doesn't this happen?

jerry

heatboy

Too much work...........

for most contractors, Jerry. Most don't know how to upsell and the ones that do find it difficult to assemble the "dream" team you mentioned since there are very few subs of that ilk. Even on some of the high end stuff I do, at times, it's like an Keystone cops or the Stooges plumbing episode. Tragic. Once everything is rocked and painted, the skeleton disappears until 10 years down the road when things start going wrong. But by then, all warranties are over and the builder may already be out of biz or under some other name.

Does this make me a cynic?

hb

Troy_3

marketing power

It has always amazed me how great marketing can make even junk look good. We've seen it in our industry before. There are people out there selling hose for twice the price of pex. I just don't get it. If the pitch is cheap then the buyer understands what he is getting. somewhat. When it is coupled with- "we charge you more cause it is better" that is great marketing in my mind. Let the buyer beware!

Brian (Tankless)

Is that the breaker panel

behind there, or is it the not-so-safe, safe, anymore, now that we all now know where it is :O)

Happy Labour Day, y'all.

Swampster.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

2nd floor sub-panel.

Constantin

too true!

My wife and I were watching this reality show called "Sell this House!" where they showcase a home that looked run-down or 70's or whatever, that allegedly had motivated sellers, and where the house sat on the block for months at a time, not selling.

The Shows dream team comes in and allegedly for a couple of hundred or even a few thousand bucks (and a lot of elbow grease) makes the place contemporary. Naturally, the house always sells at a higher price, yadda yadda. So what's my point?

Well, the hilarious thing about the show is to what extent people are driven by the stuff they see in homes. Present them with a sleek-looking home and it'll sell in no time. Present them with a lived-in home with lots of easily changed and removable issues (think wallpaper, shag carpeting, and the like) and invariably they freak out and move on.

Even worse, the prospective buyers they showcase in the show do not seem capable of realizing that the home will be empty when the current owners move out, which means that whatever owners stuff there has to be imagined away and replaced by the buyers stuff. Acting on that info, much of the show seems to be consumed with opening a storage-locker box somewhere and shoveling half the apartment into it before dressing up the rest.

Lesson learned: Either move your stuff out of the place to present the prospective buyers with a clean slate, or do some re-arranging to ensure that the home meets todays tastes. Minimal investments can make a big difference and painting rooms is not beyond most of us intent on maximizing resale value.

So I take your point about the difficulty in getting folks to look at what matters instead of focusing on the eye candy and other frou-frou stuff that will be out of style in 5 years or less. I'm taking on a decidely different tack with our home renovation, but that's because I plan on living there for a while.

Remember, Americans move every 7 years, on average, so any Economist will tell you it's rational to focus on the eye candy and try to get away with cutting corners elsewhere.

I have the good fortune of having a great GC that doesn't mind when I pitch in and who knows that I'm documenting every step of the house construction (3GB of images and growing). There is a lot of pride on the part of the artisans and a lot of appreciation by this HO for what they can do.

Thad English

caveat emptor

Nobody EVER went broke underestimating the intelligence level of the American public. That's gotta be on the Radiantec Mission Statement.
I was just in a house that had a renovated kitchen with granite countertops, limestone floors, and about $18,000 worth of sub-zero, wolf, and viking appliances. The granite and limestone had to be $20,000 in materials alone. Beautiful huge kitchen. The only problem was that none of it worked because it had been installed by Uncle Louie, who was "good with tools." Our culture is all about the glitz over the guts. The former owner of that house couldn't be bothered to clean the gutters on the house for years so they have major problems with water around the foundation, but he had a Hummer H2 in the driveway. Super-expensive kitchen and a rockin' SUV, but water in the basement every time it rains and appliances that don't work. Makes no sense to me.

billygoat22

Sounds to me like those people who put a register in a weird place because of their sofa. They use the furniture method of placing registers. Sofa will be on the curb in 5 years and for the next 100 everyone will wonder why in the world they put the register half in front of a door?
Its here in this part of country too, granite countertops and trailer park a/c units outside the house. People can't afford $80 to tune up the boiler but can afford to complain about $800 gas bills?

Ken C.

Amen, brother

Those kinds of homeowners ... I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Ken C.

Amen, brother

Those kinds of homeowners ... I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

JimGPE_14

Quality

Worked on HIGH dollar condominium project. The design team's marching orders were as follows: Everything that is visible to the HO is to be Uptown Manhattan quality; everything behind the walls and above the ceilings is to be Section 8 housing quality.

Thus, plastic sprinkler lines above GWB ceilings. Plastic plumbing piping. Romex wiring.

I used to have a boss who's design philosophy was, "for a few dollars more, we could do this right." HE was right.