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[Husky455]

I have the same type of pipe that you discribed.  My buddy has the super dupper insulated pipe and he went to the trouble of adding extra insulation around the entire pipe to the house.   My pipe is only 2 1/2 feet under ground.  His is 4 feet down.  During the winter, we both have line in the snow where you can see where the pipe runs.  Of course, this is only if it stops snowing for a  week or so.

My water temp only drops between 2 - 3 degrees from boiler to house and it is 140' away. 

Pump size and the amount of water per minute will make a huge difference in how warm the water stays and how much heat you get out of it.   You don't need to have a huge pump, but I switched from a Taco #9 to a Bell and Gossett 3 speed NRF-36.
That changed my gallons per minute from 8 up to over 35.  That made a HUGE HUGE difference in the amount of heat I get to actually heat the house. 

[John D]

I just installed my piping,and used the shiney foil wrapped stuff. It is very hard to work with,esp since the pex is lined with metal.My buddy did the same thing ,but he was smart about it.His run is only 60 ft,so he went and bought 6-10' lenths of 6" PVC,and ran the 4" tile inside of it. Then put 45s on the end to come up under the slab.Other side the 6" goes right thru his basement wall.Now he doesnt need to worry about it getting wet and losing performance. Im sure the 6" PVC adds a little R value as well.I am 70 ft from house,and wish I had done the same. 6" PVC is 24.99 a lenth here,so for about 200 bucks i could have had a 6" conduit that would have kept my lines dry. My soil conditions are good here though,it drains well. I was told the lines should stay dry so long as you dont install it in an area where the water table is at or above the pipes.

[PhinPhan]

I ended up using 6" corrugated pipe as my conduit for my water lines and electric lines.  Plus I put a couple pull strings in there just in case.  It worked out pretty well.

[Scratch]

I just got my Classic 6048 up and running.  I'm using the Thermopex.  Got it for 10.00 foot, from an old guy who's giving up being a dealer.  The cheapest I found it around here was 10.98/foot so I'm ok with that price.  I didn't know about the gravel thing under it but great idea.  Right now it's laying on the ground and buried under todays snowfall.  I'll dig a trench in the spring.

I'm sure glad I found this site!  I bet I'll learn lots form you all!

Thanks in advance.

[Katahdin Farmer]

I have both Thermopex from Central boiler AND the green insulated pipe stuff with basically a green garbage bag over the green pipe insulation. I would prefer to spend the money and go with the thermopex, the other stuff isnt great. My underground run is only 30 feet with the other stuff, but when the temp hits 25 degrees out, the snow melts. With the thermopex, the snow doesnt melt. The run for the pex is 100 feet. Id spend the money My brother in law has an Aqutherm and he ran the green insulation. Not good

[atlarge54]

There's an installer in Michigan who posts on another forum and he swears by putting the pex in a trench and spraying in place with a closed cell foam. He installs Garn boilers and from the way people talk they're as good as you can get. He swears that one place to never skimp is on your underground linesets. Another point he stresses is 1" pex is only meant to handle 80K BTU/HR according to proper design criteria.