I am adding radiant heat to the first floor of my house (replacing water baseboard heaters).
My basement does not have a ceiling, and I have been trimming flooring nails that protrude into joist bays from the first floor.
My question is this: plumbers have told me that I should have runs of
200'-250' for radiant pex (3/8"). This means 200'-250' of actual heating area as opposed to getting the pex to the heating area. To get the pex to various heating areas under rooms, I would like to run it through large pvc pipes so that I do not have to drill enormous holes in floor joists. I'll have to drill some holes, of course, where pex crosses joists in the middle of a run. My thought is that I would run 3" PVC along a large beam in my basement and put Ts in the PVC where a pex run starts. There will be another T where a run ends and begins to loop back to a manifold. The PVC will house a number of pex runs to heating areas and will protect the pex since at some point I am going to have a shop in my basement.Is there any reason not to do this? I have seen a few radiant heat setups, and they always have ganged up pex running all over the place. My thought is to organize and protect the pex by putting it in large PVC pipes on the way to a heating area (where it will run in joist bays with heat transfer plates).
Comments would be highly appreciated.
Thanks.
Mike