Hello,

I've lost/misplaced a website link about recently built home with radiant heating, system monitoring, design, construction, planning, and other information.  I believe I saw it online sometime in Spring 2006.  IIRC, it was a homeowner's own website, similar to http://www.thegarsts.com/ , where they documented in text along with photos of what they did and why.

I believe the home had the following characteristics described on the website:
-new home, new land site

-built in a mountainous or hilly region (I seem to recall it being in the eastern US)

-radiant heating throughtout the home (I think it was 4 zones, maybe up to 6)

-mention of problems with radiant heating pipes getting too hot directly out of the heat source, near the distribution manifold, so they had to replace a section with copper until the water temperatures were low enough not to hurt the plastic piping (PEX ?)

-there was a photo of how all the radiant pipes came out of the floor together in the mechanical room to hook up to the distribution manifold

-monitoring mechanisms (e.g. many temperature sensors throughout the home, all hooked up to a computer or data logging system.  The website had some graphs made from these sensor readings.)

-monitoring mechanism for electrical power consumption on each circuit in the house, to see where the actual loads were.  This monitoring was done at the electrical panel, and I believe it was done with inductors around the lead coming out of the circuit breakers.  There was a photo of this.

-a floorplan that was either cross-shaped (like a bandage-cross or the red-cross) or ~square/diamond-shaped.  It wasn't a regular rectangular or L-shaped home.  May have had a central room to which all the other rooms connected, rather than hallways.

-prefab concrete foundation walls (and it may have used prefab concrete panels for the basement slab too). There were photos of this going into place and notes about how fast/easy it was to do things this way.  I think there were notes about sealing the seams between the prefab panels.  There may have also been discussion of using 10 foot panels instead of 8 foot to get extra basement headroom at little additional cost.

-insulation under the basement floor

I do not recall the home having either solar PV or hot water.  It may have had geothermal (GSHP), and may have been SIP construction above grade.

Around the time I found the home's information page, I was looking for a way to monitor/measure power consumption on each circuit in a home and I think that site had some limited information on this (as mentioned above).

Does anyone here remember seeing such a website?  If so, do you have the website link for it, or remember any additional details about that place?

Thank you,

-Haudy Kazemi

Something that could be it is OurCoolHouse. He does sell a monitoring system.

Good Luck!

Thanks...I've been looking over that site for a few days now since you gave the link. I think that is probably the website I was remembering (the 4 zone radiant heating, floor plan, and some photos are somewhat familiar). I bet some of the other things I remembered came from other sites I browsed through.

Thanks again!

I believe I found the site that fits another entry in the search list in the first post above: "mention of problems with radiant heating pipes getting too hot directly out of the heat source, near the distribution manifold, so they had to replace a section with copper until the water temperatures were low enough not to hurt the plastic piping (PEX ?)".
http://www.solarhaven.org/Hydronic.htm
"It is absolutely necessary to use all or most of the high heat produced by the Thermomax unit or the water will actually BOIL as it circulates. PEX tubing is rated at a maximum water temperature of 180 degrees. PEX can tolerate hotter water only for a short time after which the tubing melts and bursts open as shown in the picture.

The answer to this problem is obviously to size the system correctly and to provide a place for all the energy generated to be used. We also installed three feet of copper pipe (see left) where the hot water emerges from the Thermomax manifold on the roof and goes down through the roof into the greenhouse. This is where the water is the hottest and most likely to burst the PEX. Installing copper for the entire loop between the Thermomax and the main circulating manifold would not be a bad idea. This has helped a great deal avoid trouble when the system does get too hot..."