So I've had my furnace up and running for a week or two and love it! When we built the house, we ran lines in the basement floor and garage floor. It's taken us 8 years or so to wise up and figure out what we were gonna do, but we finally did it and are so glad we did.
Right now, the OWB is heating just the lines in the floor. The basement used to be so cold in the winter, we would have our kids sleep upstairs but now the wife is actually complaining about it being too hot down there.
So now I want to hook up to the furnace and hot water heater also. My brother did most of the design of the system since he has the same setup at his place, but now I'm thinking that it should be redone.
We have the 1" PEX coming in from the wall in the basement going straight into the pump. Also I've heard that the pump should have a horizontally mounted motor instead of vertical, is that true...?
Anyways... then it goes into the mixing valve, then into a manifold with eight, 1/2" PEX zones, loops around, then it "T's" off to the mixing valve and back out to the stove. There are valves to shut off before and after the pump also. We are also using 3 of those zones for different parts of the house controlled by electronic zone valves.
My brother was planning on running a 1/2" PEX out of one of those 8 zones to the hot water heater, and another one to each of my two furnaces. This is after the mixing valve.
Am I right in thinking that what we should have done is run inside with the 1" PEX, to the pump, then to the hot water heater, then to the furnaces, "THEN" to the mixing valve and basement and garage floor radiant heat lines?
He doesn't think it should be a problem and thinks I should run the furnaces and water heater off of the 1/2" PEX from the manifolds. Is anyone else doing that and is it working out ok for them. I'm not too thrilled about redoing all my copper and manifold stuff.
What's your thoughts...?