[Greenbuilding] "Sucessful" open hydronic heating system

[Ken Beiser]

It sounds like a couple of list members have systems similar to mine and the two things that could increase our chances of being successful are good under system insulation so the heat goes to the right place and  having the right density of PEX spacing and/or heat transfer plates on the PEX to extract the heat from the flowing water.  

After 20 years in Montana, I think the only time I benefit from being earth coupled is in the summer and when I do NOT plan to have my space temperatures above about 40 degrees F.  I have a garage and a shop that are earth coupled (no insulation under the slab) and it is easy to keep them at 40 degrees but much harder to keep at 50 degrees.  I can imagine what a pain it would be to keep it at 70 degrees....I would be heating a lot of the earth.  

I also have a mudroom area that is over a cold crawlspace and it has about R25 floor insulation.  I find, even though I only want it to be 40 degrees in there, that I have to put quite a bit of heat to the space to maintain that 40 degrees.  If it was earth coupled, I think it would take a lot less energy.  Maybe on the next house....

Ken Beiser
Whitefish, MT