This system is not all that basic.......

The water gets from the Dragon to the house underground in PEX tubing.  There are no underground joints....the PEX tubing comes in big rolls.  The PEX tubing is buried inside a 4" diameter PVC pipe that has about 4" of insulation molded to the outside.....there is some heat loss and the nearer the house the better - but supposedly it only loses a few degrees in making the trip.  We are about 150 feet away from the house and like having all the mess and smell out of sight....the garage heat travels in a second pipe and likely travels about 30 feet to get inside the garage.

The PEX tubing is special as it does not allow oxygen to permeate the pipe and get into the water.  The water is treated with a chemical that starves the water for oxygen - so the water loses the oxygen and won't rust the boiler that is made from steel.  The builders prefer to use plain steel for boilers as it is more efficient than using stainless steel, and they don't use antifreeze in the water as it would take several hundred gallons.  The PEX tubing is also under the floor of the garage, and I believe it may only have 1 joint under the concrete.  The joints are brass sleeves with the pipe pushed over the sleeve and then a brass collar is compressed onto the pipe to lock it in place.  Where the floor has joints the PEX tubing is put inside a short sleeve that allows the concrete to move and not be in direct contact wit the PEX tubing....the PEX is protected inside the sleeve.  If you get a hole in the PEX that is buried in the floor....you are screwed.  We have a lot of steel reinforcing in the floor to keep it from moving around.  The hot water from the boiler goes to a manifold that has valves and a pump and is connected to a zone for the  front garage and a zone for the back garage - when the thermostats call for heat the hot water is pumped through the floor.  What is weird is that if you have the thermostat set for 60 - the floor only gets up to about 65 to keep things warm.  It is radiant heat and is very stable, and the heat stays low and doesn't rise up to the ceiling like is does with forced air.

When the hot boiler water comes into the house it is somewhere between 160-180 degrees and it first passes through one side of a water/water heat exchanger that preheats the cold water that is going into the water heater.  From there the boiler water goes to a side arm on the water heater that has a 2" outer shell and a 1" inner pipe that are all made of copper.  The boiler water is traveling downward in the 2" pipe to keep the water inside the water heater hot....the 1" pipe connects to the bottom of the water heater and then travels up through the center of the 2" pipe and enters the water heater at the top.  The thermosiphon action of the water flowing out of the 1" pipe at the bottom of the water heater causes the water to flow upward in the 1" pipe as it is heated and then it flows back into the water tank at the top.  The boiler water then leaves the water heater sidearm and travels to the furnace where a water/air heat exchanger is installed in the furnace plenum - when we need heat the thermostat opens a valve and direct the water through the heat exchanger......when we don't need heat the valve directs the water through a bypass pipe.  Then the water returns to the boiler to be reheated.

When the boiler is working the electric heating elements in the water heater are turned off, as we get plenty of hot water from the boiler.  The water in the boiler and the water in the water heater never mix - they are separate water systems and they operate independently and they only way they interconnect is by a heat exchanger.  When the boiler does not have a fire the pumps that circulate the boiler water are turned off - and there is no boiler water flowing through the heat exchangers to add or remove heat from the water heater tank...the electric water heater elements are turned back on and we have to buy electricity to heat our water.

I generally only run the outdoor boiler when outside temperatures are consistently below 40 degrees.  Above that temperature the heat pump and sunshine does a good job heating the house.  If I want to work in the garage I may fire up the boiler every few days - the concrete floors hold the heat for a long time and only lose a few degrees each day.....it takes several days to drop from 60 to 50 (and it takes nearly a half day of heating to get the floors back up to 60 once they have cooled off.

   

 

Yea , Smart set up.      

I don't know how you ever figured all that out ?   I thought maybe in your job experiences  you see more stuff than most of the rest of us ?

If I ever move the wood burner out side then I'll need a little more price friendly set up , I'm sure.

My little wood stove heats the 1900 sq/ft house just fine.   The wood is always less than 19" long and less than 5" dia.
The Bad part is the little heater has to be refilled about ever 4-6 hours because one 5"er and one 3"er is all that can fit in it at a time.  I should have replaced it 15 years ago , but ... that would cut into my Motorcycle Money so it hasn't happened yet !     Ya know a good wood heater is over $3000 now.    That the amount I sold Kate for.   I've got a Tractor Supply one that came with the house.

I was asking mainly on behalf of that son of mine.   He is planning to build a house and I need to know how to advise him on a good system.   There is a chance ??? he might get a Cedar Log cabin on a concreate slab.   If that "slab" was like your shop floor his life would be a lot easier in the long run.   We are doing some logging and have a lot of cedar.   The logger is also a log home builder.   We could work-something-out  Maybe ???      Son is not sure what he even wants yet ...

That make me think of something else Dave .    You have any experience with those metal buildings like a lot of business have ?   I've seen a few of them built on slabs that are houses with garages built into them too.

I'm of the understanding that some types of log homes have problems with wood bees !   Wouldn't that be a mess after a few years !  

My sister has an antique log home with huge logs and the chinking between the logs.  The cabin was torn down and rebuilt on her property.  Maintenance of the logs is a constant battle for her, and it is expensive.  The logs near the bottom get a lot of moisture and she had to have several replaced - it was expensive to hire a craftsman that knows how to do that.  You live in a drier climate than she does, and a wood structure may work better for you in TN.

I don't have any experience with the modern wood logs.  I was a building inspector for a few cities and I have issued permits for hundreds of homes, and not a single one was a log cabin!  I do believe the wood has to get cleaning/sealing/staining on a regular basis - and you can easily spot the cabins with the weathered damaged wood where owners don't do that.

There is a little house close by that was built a few years ago that is a metal building.  It has a couple of level changes as it sits on the side of a hill looking at the Ohio River.  It is cuter than this photo from Google Street view makes it look, and it has a huge outdoor deck area with a roof that takes advantage of the river view......it is lit up at night with lots of little string lights.  I think a house like this would be really affordable to build and low maintenance - however I think you need to get good metal that is durable.  I built a metal pole building around 1998 from a kit I got from a lumber yard.  The metal siding has rust forming on the metal sheets where the bends where formed in the metal.  Painting metal siding is really difficult I believe - as it is hard to get the new paint to stick and I have seen a lot of metal poles buildings with peeling paint.

There are also a lot of folks using the shipping containers to make houses.  Some are really nice - some are not.  I don't know that the resale value would be - I suppose it depends how nicely the job was done.  It would be really easy to do a poor job and end up with a cold, leaky house if you did this wrong.

My outdoor furnace was about $6,000 when I built this house in 2007.  I didn't know anything about how they work - luckily the fellow that I bought it from did.  He was a small contractor who sold the furnaces and knew how to install them, and he allowed me to do the work I could do and he worked affordably for what he could do.  He had previously been an employee of the company installing our HVAC system and they worked well together getting their systems combined.  There was a large company nearby that made the 4x8 sheets of 2-3" thick insulation for roofing, and for $100 I could buy a large trailer load of "seconds" that worked fine but had visual flaws.....that insulation was used under the floor of the garage and house.  Our house and garage are also made of SIPS panels - which is styrofoam panels that have OSB plywood glued to them....it is really well insulated.  If I remember correctly the entire wood boiler and heat pump system in the house and garage was nearly $24,000!  In addition to that I had to buy chainsaws, a wood splitter and build a wood shed.....that likely cost another $6,000 or so (I already had the tractor and trailer for hauling wood so I don't count those).  For the past 15 years we have been heating our house with wood when the weather is cold, and for the longest time the cost of electricity was $70 - $100 a month.  Our last bill was $175 due to the increase in electricity, and I have also been in the garage a lot using the air compressor, powder coating oven and lights.  I do believe we have saved enough money on heating cost to pay for the entire system - but I do spend several weeks each year cutting/splitting/stacking wood.  I am pretty sure I could not afford to heat my house and the 1,800 square foot garage all winter if I was using propane/oil/electricity for heat.  It is a lifestyle choice that my wife and I have made........she spends a lot of time in her garden growing vegetables and canning food, and I spend a lot of time gathering up firewood.  I can pick and choose when I cut wood, and since the wood is all here on my property I can spend an just an hour or two at a time when I can fit it in - I don't have to spend an entire day on wood if I don't want to.  I am pretty cheap when it comes to giving my money to a utility company and I somewhat enjoy the process of getting wood - the other place I am really cheap is paying somebody else to do my vehicle repairs.  It just doesn't seem right to work all day at my job so I can pay a dealership for an hour of labor!

There was a large company nearby that made the 4x8 sheets of 2-3" thick insulation for roofing, and for $100 I could buy a large trailer load of "seconds" that worked fine but had visual flaws.....that insulation was used under the floor of the garage and house.

Brilliant,, getchya a gold star...

I'm sure you also know plywood can be had at discount from Lowe's or Home Depot.
A scrape or even a gouge, can save fifty percent.

Winter storm definitely on its way. I was supposed to become a grandfather for the second time tomorrow but due to winter storm has been postponed until Monday. Who knows though, the little guy may decide he wants to arrive this weekend anyway!

18 degrees and sunny , but too cold for me !    Al Gore should be sssooo embarrassed  

We saw 8 degrees on the car temperature display this morning on the way to church.


Unless Jesus promised to meet me on the steps and give me a
Warm You Up hug
I'm not going!

I guess if I'm wanting to be warm, he could get me fixed up, for Eternity..

I did get to take the DR out for a ride yesterday for an hour long secondary road ride.   The temp got up to 40 or so.    Warm enough to putt around in the 30mph nicely.  
It runs up to 65mph with no sweat .    But -- Its cold up there !