All,
I have a late 60's 1600 sq ft ranch in Long Island, NY with baseboard / hydronic heat split into two loops, each loop serving one 'side' of the house and sharing a common return to boiler. Boiler is oil-fired and approaching the end of it's life, would love to upgrade to something more environmentally friendly but that's a separate issue for now.
Would like to convert the attached garage and basement to livable space but here is my issue - supply lines for the home heat are all plumbed below the joists in the basement. It's all 1" copper wrapped in old (probably toxic) loose-batt insulation wrapped in plastic. Each baseboard is plumbed with 3/4" copper risers from a scoop t on the supply.
To get the head clearance I'd need to either;
a) Re-route existing copper between / through the floor joists (2/12's on 16s).
b) Swap the loops for a manifold with oxygen barrier pex homeruns.
I've read a lot of smart people on here saying not to swap out good copper for pex, and I agree with that sentiment, but as I'm going to need the future room to run heat to the garage (probably a year or so down the line) it's tempting to swap to a manifold style system to make adding any more elements pretty trivial. We may add an addition down the line too.
Option c is really the meat of my question. I think I can avoid making any substantial changes to the existing system if I just remove one element from the lounge (the supply to this element runs right across the main part of the basement). If I added a manifold to my existing set up, heated the basement from here and added the living room element to said manifold - I would end up with a hybrid loop & manifold system. Imagine I would need a separate circulator pump for the manifold.
Is this a bad idea? Should I be trying to extend my existing loops instead? Should I just add another loop and forget the manifold dream?
I'll be reaching out to a local pro but would appreciate as many opinions as I can get,
Thanks
I have a late 60's 1600 sq ft ranch in Long Island, NY with baseboard / hydronic heat split into two loops, each loop serving one 'side' of the house and sharing a common return to boiler. Boiler is oil-fired and approaching the end of it's life, would love to upgrade to something more environmentally friendly but that's a separate issue for now.
Would like to convert the attached garage and basement to livable space but here is my issue - supply lines for the home heat are all plumbed below the joists in the basement. It's all 1" copper wrapped in old (probably toxic) loose-batt insulation wrapped in plastic. Each baseboard is plumbed with 3/4" copper risers from a scoop t on the supply.
To get the head clearance I'd need to either;
a) Re-route existing copper between / through the floor joists (2/12's on 16s).
b) Swap the loops for a manifold with oxygen barrier pex homeruns.
I've read a lot of smart people on here saying not to swap out good copper for pex, and I agree with that sentiment, but as I'm going to need the future room to run heat to the garage (probably a year or so down the line) it's tempting to swap to a manifold style system to make adding any more elements pretty trivial. We may add an addition down the line too.
Option c is really the meat of my question. I think I can avoid making any substantial changes to the existing system if I just remove one element from the lounge (the supply to this element runs right across the main part of the basement). If I added a manifold to my existing set up, heated the basement from here and added the living room element to said manifold - I would end up with a hybrid loop & manifold system. Imagine I would need a separate circulator pump for the manifold.
Is this a bad idea? Should I be trying to extend my existing loops instead? Should I just add another loop and forget the manifold dream?
I'll be reaching out to a local pro but would appreciate as many opinions as I can get,
Thanks
