gypcrete or???

Al Letellier

3/8" to 1/2 light weight pour is not enough to secure and hold and/or protect the piping and cracking will occur. ThermoFlor is a great alternative to gypcrete and there is or was a distributor in No. Mass (the name escapes me). Using the old piping is probably not a good idea, having to much mass and too little insulation. Seek other alternative. Seek out a heat pro for assistance and options

<A HREF="http://www.heatinghelp.com/getListed.cfm?id=248&Step=30">To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"</A>

archibald tuttle

radiant over VCT on concrete

Old school with 9" composition tile, i.e. the kind you can't rip out without paying enormous sums for abatement. They have clunky old steam fan coils with long decrepit individual pneumatic thermostats. Masonry building with enormous single pane windows. Basement and two upper floors. Each floor about 6000 sq. ft. Bohemoth oil boiler in the basement, big as a locomotive. Don't know the acutal firing rate, but sure at this point it has nothing to do with the load. Not looking for help to that level of sophistication at the moment although eventually...

As it happens one room is scheduled to get a new floor and flooring company is recommending a selfleveling filler in the 3/8 to 1/2 inch range. I already believed the obvious solution for encapsualting the flooring and moving to high efficiency hydronic boilers was radiant infloor.

I've done much residential seat of the pants radiant. sleepers and lightweight concrete, but never ventured into the world of gypcrete as the cost threshold to have a sub show up was always beyond my shoestring budgets.

Is gypcrete the best/only type of solution. Is there any real competition amongst pumper/providers in southern new england area? Any recommendations on company to offer quote. When I used to price this back before I gave up on the idea that the cost would every come down to something I could afford, D.F. Pray, was a local provider.

Are there any non-mechanical attachments for pipe, e.g. construction adhesive with cinder blocks or some other type of distributed weight on top of pipes until they cure so I don't have to shoot nails into this flooring which is otherwise mostly undisturbed.

How bad of an idea is using the old two pipe steam as feed and return to each room and putting a manifold where the fan coil units now sit. Haven't gotten into how the pipe chases work in the building and how much of a pain in the butt, i.e. this struggling school's wallet, it would be to run alternative piping on per room or per zone basis back to the basement.

Obviously they are also considering trying to borrow money to replace the windows. And it is not out of the question to make a business plan showing reliable energy savings in support of some capital investment here. The in-floor radiant just seems like a really obvious answer to me and I'm trying to test that notion amongst the heateratie before smugly proposing it as one worth pursuing.

Brian

Weezbo

Hello....Have you an ear to alternatives other than in floor?

this is sight unseen ,radiant ceilings,with a pipe chase thru a soffit,with new supply air to the rooms....

Stress controled ventilation and adequate outside air in the mix, that way people wont fall asleep in class...

and as wonderful as it is to gaze out the large single pane windows to dream ....perhaps you could relocate funds from the floor gyp crete to smaller triple pane windows...

Bob Vennerbeck

I've seen numerous references to 'don't use duct tape on PEX', so I would be very leery of using even nastier construction adhesive to try to fasten tubing to anything. Maybe a layer of turkey wire (or whatever relatively lightweight fairly stiff wire mesh is called these days) could be sparsely fastened into the VAT tile, or even laid OVER the PEX - minimal fasteners would probably crack the tiles, but the damage would be encapsulated almost immediately - the real problem with VAT abatement is when you try to chip up the last 5% of the tiles where the mastic really worked - and did you know they used to put asbestos in the mastic, too? Not sure why they didn't put it in toothpaste (No Cholesterol, High Fiber!)....

archibald tuttle

the floors the limit or ...

Weezbo - Al - Bob - etc. Thought mostly of the floor because of the need to encapsulate, so immediately I'm drawn to the notion of getting two things done at once. No question I'm comfortable with floor installations because I've done numerous of them and never messed with radiant elsewhere.

I know the gypcrete would have to be thicker than the leveling proposed for floor replacement alone. I think maybe mechanical attachments to the floor and filling the pipe with heavy water (I'll just get some from some nuclear research facility).

The existing fan coil units do have outdoor makeup but the controls that open and close the vents to the outdoors are antique honeywell pneumatics and the whole control structure is way overdone. As far as fresh air make-up, we could use the same ports already installed for the existing fan coils and some air to air heat exchanger or something???

Window replacements are on the docket before a complete heating change but require money raising borrowing etc. for about 125 grand. Other problem is the building is masonry, so once you get the windows up above R-1 you've got to start worrying about the wall which is only about R-8. I think two or three inches of foam on the outside with dry-vit stucco or something is the way to go.

If we could get the whole building pumped in one fell swoop and deal with the floors thought it might improve replacement floor quality and get heating solved at the same time in cost perspetive that was mitigated by what would have been spent on more modest floor leveling.

Still interested in best gypcrete pumping contacts anyway for my own interest in cost and process, or in a home recipe so I can do my own self leveling on smaller residential jobs.

I haven't clicked the duct tape link yet for all the old posts about what the problem is with that, but maybe you can refresh the point. Maybe high bodied contact adhesive?


Brian