radiant in joist bays that are < 16in wide

[herron1967]

I am in the process of installing staple-up radiant heat in my unfinished basemnt (the first floor above the basement will be heated).

One place in my basement ceiling has joist bays that are around 7" wide. This is because of several doubled-up floor joists that are used to support first floor closet walls.

What is the recommended way to run radiant pex in narrow joist bays? The 3/8 pex I am using can do 8" turns, which works perfectly in standard joist bays that are defined by 16 oc joists. But, this does not get me very far in 7" or thereabouts bays.

One solution is to just skip the narrow bays. This would not be a total loss, but I&#39;d prefer not to do this. The first floor closets supported by the doubled-up joists do not span entire first floor rooms. So, by skipping the narrow bays I would leave some cold spots in the first floor.

Thanks.

mh

[Greg O]

Why not run one pass of tubing in narrow bays? Greg

[Don Young]

[herron1967]

I like the idea of using an elbow to do a tight turn. Thanks for suggesting this.

Is it ok if the return end from a narrow bay is not heating anything? Usually, to run radiant through a bunch of bays, I pull the pex through joist holes on one side of the house. After looping back, I then pull the pex into each bay, stapling up bay by bay. This syste, will not work as well with narrow bays.

mh

[Wayne Whitney]

It seems like it would be simplest to do a single run in a narrow bay, and at the end of the run, go through a hole in the joist(s) to the next narrow bay.

Cheers, Wayne