All pictures and info submitted by Alan Belson:

Pic 1. Overview of the control board. This will eventually be hidden inside the stairs. Board is 4' x 8' x 3/4" ply.
There are 3 zones;
*The new house we presently live in, with conventional radiators run at 75C(167F), LH circuit.
*First (ground UK) floor u/f system. Dedicated circulator. Runs water at 43C (110F)
*2nd floor (1st floor UK) u/f system. Dedicated circulator. Runs water at 35C (63F), (set by factory at 40C )
Each circuit is; a demand signal starts a circulator & opens a motorised valve, relay in valve starts boiler.
All covers off to enable me to trace any faults. There were none.



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I've tried to keep the wiring logical and neat, so every electrical device feeds to its own small box, then on to the main boxes and panels, where the control circuits are wired. This has avoided the 'cramming it all in and hammer the lid on' approach, and made it a cinch to wire up, even had enough room for labels! I adopted Mark (E57)'s method of laying out house-wiring to position the choc-blocks in best logical positions in the panels, thankyou Mark! Some of the wiring is temporary, to give power and lights. 2 x 10 amp breakers on the board, with a 45A 2p Isolator. The LH breaker will eventually feed the forced whole-house ventilation.

Pic 2 Close up of main panels, which are plastic in Europe. I used 16mm pvc rigid for conduit. Note the hot wired signal wire.
The space in the top panel,RH, will be occupied by 2 wireless receivers from remote programmable thermostats, one for each floor. This pic shows the first fire up of the system for second floor. 65C boiler temp set., 40C input temp. 35C return temp, 21C ambient after 2 hours. These temperatures will be adjusted on full commissioning, but this result shows I'm drawing about 50W/m2, according to my manual, satisfactory!



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Pic 3 Valves and wiring. Trying desperately to keep it neat and tidy! The blue capped valves are the mixers, which take boiler water, mix it with floor-return water and maintain a constant floor input temp.. The boiler must run at high temperature for long life, and to feed the radiators.



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Pic 4 Boiler room. 36kw diesel boiler, stainless flue. Discrete circulator. A re-circulator valve rapidly brings the boiler to temperature. Red globe is the pressure accumulator, keeping system at 1 bar (14.7psi) , the safety blows at 3 bar. Green bottle is my Mark I homemade pump for getting system up to pressure. Fill is 33% ethyl-glycol plus inhibitor, 120 litres ( 26 imp. gallon) total system, made from a sprayer I nicked out of her greenhouse! The boiler has a fuel pump, so I have fitted an oil shut-off valve operated by a fusible link. Other links operate the air-in shutter and an electrical isolator. All this is intended to give some delay in the event of a fire. The boiler room will be air-sealed; I have intumescent sealed the door, ( 2" oak) , but still need to line the room out in sheetrock. Tank is bonded, and can be seen extreme right.



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Thanks Alan!.

Boy, is that flash or what?!.
Been a long time since I've Control wiring that neat.
I thought that that might have been a makeshift fire extinguisher, just in case.

absolutely amazing
and beautiful too

One of the basic truths:
Think neat get neat.
Think **** get **** .
What a great job got done there!

That brickwork looks like it could be from the nineteenth century. How old is this house ?

That's an impressive looking panel, and certainly neater than most I run across.

I notice you have both French and British sockets on there next to each other. Entente cordiale, eh?


I think you forgot to add the 32. Shouldn't that be 95 degrees? I was trying to figure out at first why you'd run water at barely room temperature.

kiwi: Not brick, but solid pink granite. Built 1669, according to a quoin stone uncovered while clearing the chicken-s** out of the boiler-room, ie 100 years before Captain Cook crashed into New Zealand and discovered the Maoris got there first, and just 49 years after the Pilgrim Fathers left Plymouth in 1620. The wall you are looking at by the control board is about 750mm (30") thick granite, and the 'mortar' is clay. I have to tell you the people who owned this place in 1790 were probably garrotted in the 'Reign of Terror'. Village Church records show 15 persons executed by such means.....
ps. Good book to read is Vive la Revolution, by Mark Steel. isbn 0-7432-0805-6
Simon & Schuster, Sydney Australia. A brilliantly funny yet poignant history of the French Revolution. Lots of US references too.

Paul: Yep, forgot to add 32 tsk! tsk! Did you know Fahrenheit thought -32 was absolute zero? Cripes, we could have been adding 459!
No excuse, but kW, BThU, F, C, lbs, miles, kilometres, kilograms, metres, feet, inches, French, and now the bloody Euro, sometimes it gets a bit much for an old chap!
I have a British switched socket for UK tools with moulded plugs still under g'tee, GOOD aren't they!? Temporary of course, the Insurance Co. don't like them, so once we move in it will be back to the French crap.
It's not as neat as I wanted, try as I might I just could NOT get the solid wire to bend exactly right. It's not as easy as it looks is it?
Trials still underway on overall performance, both floors. I'll keep you posted, but it is looking good. Oh, and thank you all for the positive comments. Very much appreciated.

regards
Alan

Beautiful work, Alan! Such craftsmanship is getting pretty rae around here. Some cinemas I've worked look like the HVAC and electrical systems exploded and were tacked back together...

In the first pic, is the plastic I see for vapor barrier?

Little question Alan,
Did you install the copper work yourself?.
As in the sweated joints at the elbows and bends?.
Here we solder them.

mxslick. Yes, the polythene sheet is the outer vapor barrier. Barriers, (there's another between the sheetrock and the insulation), are essential when insulating dense structures, like stone/brick, especially in a damp climate. A dew-point will appear somewhere between the inner surface and outside, and the amount of air and water vapour that passes through sheetrock is quite amazing. On the molecular level, it's full of bloody great holes! This dew-water soaks into the insulation, degrades its performance and moves the dew-point toward the sheetrock, and so on. Eventual result- damp patches, fungi, black spots, smells, bigger heating bills etc. I once saw a layer of ghastly pink jelly ( fungus) nearly 2 inches thick on the inside of a non-barriered sheetrock panel- it had collapsed under the weight!
Trumpy, Bent it all myself using a hand pipe-bender. You can't bend straight French 22mm, as it's fully hard and snaps!, so I imported some Brit 22mm for the bends, using 22mm Froggypipe for the straights- see the different color? 22mm is the only French pipe compatible with UK plumbing fittings- they use every diameter from 6mm up, in 2mm steps ( 6-8-10-12-14-16-18-20-22 etc), handy, and as each pipe fits in the next, no need to buy reducers. French plumbers do not solder, they use copper-silver brazing with oxy-propane. They don't buy elbows or tees either, but make these up on site from pipe, using coils of very soft copper tube where manipulations are required.
My fittings are plumbers' lead/tin soldered, or compression with olives. I use an American flux, as it's just unbeatable for top notch joints. For drinking water I use a tin/copper/Al eutectic solder, safer, but more difficult to sweat.

Alan

Just a little aside,
Did you know that Lead-based solder is about to be banned here.
Not sure what the alternative is, but I've got a mountain of 60/40 here.
That will increase the price of electronic repairs.
Repairs are cut-throat as it is.
Your thoughts Paul?.
{Sorry about the thread-jack Alan}

Mike, Interesting point. Plumbers and Electricians use solder with entirely different specifications. For electrical wiring work, it's the eutectic alloy of lead and tin, 60-40, which has the lowest melting point, c. 200C. This reduces heat damage to components, & it sets solid without a tertiary stage. For plumbing, the alloy chosen was 70-30 or even 50-50, which goes though a 'pasty stage' like soft putty, for wiping joints. I can see the point in replacing plumbers' solder because of the lead poisoning risk. This only occurs in soft water, hard water is not a problem, but with the growth in water-softeners....
Since joint-wiping is now mostly antiquated, using a cu-sn-al-? alloy is not really a problem. In fact, a lead-tin capilliary joint forms a copper/lead/tin alloy in the thin solder film, which is why they are strong but a bugger to take apart later! As to electrical work, I can't see how the eutectic can be displaced by a trick alloy without introducing other toxic metals, or frying components with higher temperatures. What really got up my hooter in the UK was some idiot deciding that 'boss white' was dangerous for potable water joints made with hemp/oakum. It's only ground chalk and linseed oil! The green muck that replaced it had all the attributes of boss white bar one-the bloody joints all leaked!

Alan

Oddly enough Alan,
You've caught me out here.
In all of the Refrigeration work I've done with installing and jointing copper Air Conditioning and Freezer Gas and Suction lines, I've only ever used Silphos rods.
We use graphite paste here with Brass Hot-Water Cylinder elements, in combination with the Hemp.
I've used it since the start of my Apprenticeship and I are'nt going back now!.
Oddly enough Alan, do you think that we should start a new topic?.
Different solders and other such engineering things never seem to get a mention here.

Next year it will be lead-free solder for electronics in Europe.

The choice is simple: Raise the temperature and use cheap solder or stay put and switch to some exotic expensive solder. It is no bold guess that most companies will go for the higher temperature: approx 220C. Components that withstand higher temperature gradually replace the old ones.

I remember reading about the proposed ban on lead in solder a few years ago.

I can't help wondering what real effect the ban is supposed to have. 90% of equipment is imported from the far east these days. Is there going to be a ban on the importation of equipment using lead-based solder too?

Is the relatively small amount of regular 60/40 solder used here going to make that much difference?

As for use of solder for equipment repairs, the effect would surely be tiny. Even if manufacturers switched to lead-free solder, I can't see that the tiny amount used in maintenance and repair work is going to be a problem.

Is anywhere going to have an exemption to allow leaded solder to be sold in small quantities after the deadline? (Like we had for leaded gasoline in the U.K.)

Either way, I guess it will come as no surprise that I'm planning on laying in big stocks of regular 60/40 solder.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 08-25-2005).]

Yes. In fact, the Japanese (and through them the Chinese) took the early talk of a ban seriously and many have already gone lead-free.

This lead to a completely new situation: I was at a fair earlier this year where an European electronics manufacturer explains that they will be able to adjust to the new rules with the assistance of Chinese experts!

Neither can I. For repairs, yes.

RESULTS HEATING TRIALS
As I studied the first set of results, the numbers didn't make sense. I appeared to have 'lost' 15kw of heat into the floor! An investigation showed that the boiler, which I got 'nearly new', had had a smaller jet fitted, and has a far lower output than the maker's plate implies.

Makers data: Burner output, 0.5gph jet with preheater, 12 bar pump, diesel fuel,
18.4kw gross, 16.5kw net.
Estimated transmission losses allow 1.0 kw
Net output to floor(s)= 15.5kw = 53000btu/hr
Water/ethylene glycol, 33%, btu/lb/degF= 0.92
specific gravity = 1.04, taken as near enough 1.0
Ambient t during trials = 19C(66F), and to avoid math complications, all ambient temperature readings were adjusted to 19C as they varied during the trials.
All thermometers were calibrated with an electronic medical thermometer.
C= centigrade scale, K= degrees Centigrade, F = Fahrenheit scale, dF = degrees Fahrenheit.

Results
Second (first Europe) floor trial.
Foil/bubblewrap insulation layer over 7/8" t&g softwood ceiling, ( so we could walk on it laying pipes), under 15mm OD/11mm ID X-linked polythene pipes laid as 3 discrete loops of 100 metres (328ft.) at 200mm (8") centers, fed from 22mm OD copper pipe/ manifolds. Floor 1" t&g cedar of lebanon boards. There is a 1" airspace over the pipe, and the floor is sealed at edges to prevent convection currents. This is a low wattage emission design.

Boiler trial #1
t'stat set 57C-65C. Mean= 61C; range 8K, (14.4dF)
time burning= 1645 sec. (about 2mins 30sec per burn).
time off= 5960 sec
total time= 7605 seconds
Burn time= 22%
THEORY
22% burn, 15.5kw net= 3.41kw to floor, but allowing 400W loss to the room below;
To floor = 3.0kw on 72 m2 = 41.7W/m2
Using the well known emission coefficient of 11W/m2K (3.5btu/hr/sq ft./dF) -
Floor temperature should be 3.8K ( 6.8dF) over ambient.

PRACTICAL RESULTS
Flow into 2nd floor @ 40C (104F). Return from floor 35C (95F) Range 5K (9dF)

Find the exact flow rate through the floor, without instruments!!
Boiler shell holds 14 litres (30lb) and cycles approx. 9 minutes off, 2.5 minutes firing. 30lb falls 14.4dF = 30x14.4x0.92= 394btu drop between firings. Water returning to boiler drops 9dF losing 9x0.92= 8.28 btu/lb of flow.
In 9 minutes, return water cools boiler at 397/9 = 44btu/min..
So flow must be 44/8.28 = 5.3 lb/minute or 0.04 litres / second.
Now the mix valve takes in water, (from thermometer reading) at 55C (131F), so 1lb at 55C + 3lb at 35C = 4lb at 40C. Flow through the floor = 4 x 0.04
Flow = 0.16 litres/second, 3.52 lb/second

0.16 litres/sec = 1267lb/hr x9dFx 0.92= 10491 btu/hr= 3.06kw, and in a 72m2 floor output is 42.6W/m2 ( 13.3btu/hr/sq ft)
Using 11W/m2K, floor temperature should be 3.87K, 7dF above ambient.
Floor temperature measured at 22.5C @19C = 3.5k ( 6.3dF)

Estimated actual power = 42.6W/m2= 3kw, ( 10,489btu/hr) at the second floor.

First (ground) floor trial.
Base layers plus 50mm extruded PS foam under 75mm dense concrete floating floor slab. Pipe layour as per second floor, except there are 4 x 100 metre loops. Cover over pipes 50mm. Weight 12.4 imp. tons, floor will have a ceramic tile finish.
Edges of floor have a thermal break.
Area heated, 84m2 (904 sq ft).
At 28C mean slab temp., from a 20C start, slab requires 14.4x0.2x12.4x2240= 80,000 btu or 23.5kwh to raise to working temperature.
Boiler trial.
The required power of this floor is only 50W/m2, bearing in mind the insulation and venting design. Circulators can only deliver a fixed quantity of heat, and this is less than the boiler output. A stable condition was never reached, I still have no room stats (French supplier!), so trial was terminated once 50W/m2 was achieved. A boiler trial is thus pointless. This meant a flow rate could not be calculated, so I will assume it is about 0.16 litres per second.
Floor cover of 50mm concrete will drop temperature from the water by;-
R=p/y; y=1.1W/mK, p=0.05m, so R=0.45W/m2K
t drop thro' concrete, y/R = 2.4K, so mean water temperature required is 28C, 82F
From this figure, floor requires 3.8kw plus an allowance for losses into the earth.
Downward heat loss to earth is not math for the faint hearted! So I used tables!
50mm of EPS in a concrete floor of this size, 1/R= 0.5W/m2K , at 28C loss = 1175W
So total power required = 5kw, 17000btu/hr.
If flow is 0.16 litres/second, similar to upper floor, = 1267lb/hr at 1165btu/dF, the temperature drop should be 14.4dF at 17000btu/hour, and exit water should be 35C or above.

TRIAL DATA
Time to reach approx. 50W/m2 from 19C start, = 5 hours 11 minutes
Floor temperature was 24C(75F) = 5K (9dF) rise, at trial end.
Input water 43C (109F)
Return water 35C (95F) at trial end.
8K achieved = 50W/m2 approx.
TRIAL STOPPED.

Phew!

Alan

ps. I reasoned that at an ambient temperature of around 19C, the emissions from the floors would be roughly the same as if all the insulation had been installed. A lucky break in the weather.

Edits for spelling and typos.
Edit, decimal place error.

{Message edited to remove edit notices}

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 03-24-2006).]

Alan,
You've obviously put a LOT of thought and calculation into this installation.
I hope it serves you well, mate!.
Mind you, not the sort of thing that you want to screw up.
Do it once, do it well. (the way I was bought up)