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[d conover]

If I stick with a Hardy boiler, is there any downside to individually wrapping the 4  pex lines with the black foam insulation and putting it in 6" shedule 40 pipe?

[willieG]

If I stick with a Hardy boiler, is there any downside to individually wrapping the 4  pex lines with the black foam insulation and putting it in 6" shedule 40 pipe?

i would make a guess that it would be likley good if you could gaurentee that moisture would not enter the pipe. if your black foam gets wet it will lose most or all of its insulation value.

and if you could make certain it would not get wet than if you warpped it twice withthe black foam i would make another guess that you would have just as good or better than the store bought stuff

if you were using black steel pipe i would suggest a pressure test of some sort to make sure it is water tight before putting your lines in it

also if the joints are screwed, wrapping them with tape to keep the moisture away from them would be benificial as well

[F7JC]

I recently installed my DIY pex line and currently  stove temp at around 175 degress and 37 degress outside temp in 110' the pipe loses nothing.  Now I'm not sure what its going to do when in gets in the single digits,  but its really got me wondering.  I purchased the same lowe E wrap that the manufactures use, it came in 24 inch by 100 foot rolls.  I cut it in 5 20 foot pieces and got about three wrapes out of it,  then strap taped the hech out of it.  I used 4 inch schedule 40 as the conduit.  The only thing I think i'm really going to regret is only buried the pipe 2 feet down.  Like I said it works great now, we will see when it gets real cold.

[willieG]

I recently installed my DIY pex line and currently  stove temp at around 175 degress and 37 degress outside temp in 110' the pipe loses nothing. 

all pipe loses some heat, nothing can be insulated enough to not let energy move from warm to cold. however, after saying that it may me so small of anamount you can not measure it. there is more to just insulation involved in what you call losing heat in your pipes. if say  for instance if you were pumping water through your pipes at 5 gpm and notice you were losing 1 or 2 degrees at the house if you were to up your flow to say 10 gpm you may see such a little heat loss it would not be measurable

to determine the real heat loss would require you to stop the water in your pipes from flowing and measure how many degrees it cooled in a certain time period and if you could talk to the right person they could figure out the r value of your insulation.
my personal belief is if you have yoru pipes insulated and inside an air filled conduit then you have about the best you can get as the heat loss from your pipes to the air in the conduit would be far less than the heat lost from your pipes to the earth

[Bull]

If I stick with a Hardy boiler, is there any downside to individually wrapping the 4  pex lines with the black foam insulation and putting it in 6" shedule 40 pipe?

This is close to the way I did my install but I used the pipe insulation that comes in 3 foot sections and then used 2 - 4 inch black corrugated pipes (2 lines per pipe) It was cheaper to buy 2- 4 inch pipes than 1 - 6 inch

[rhugg]

I did the same as Bull and Foamed the ends of the 4" Currugated.  I thought about the 6" but there are two problems 1) more expensive than double 4's and 2) Ditch Witch barely does a 4" ditch.  Corrugated 4" has a little over 4" OD.  My underground run is as deep as the Ditch Witch would go and only 50' so I am comfortable with the insulation.  Diminishing returns, I could pay three times as much and only get 10% better insulation.  I can't see using no insulation.  Remember Thermodynamics the greatest heat loss will be where the temperature differential is the highest.  You might consider 4" PVC over 4" Corrugated ... I thought about it.
 

[rosewood]

i think you can make some decent stuff ,its not so much the insulation problem as it is a waterproof concern.i have a 2deg loss in 100 ' .not bad for a cost of less than 200$  ,had 6''corragated already.  very sandy and water is no problem.