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My 1920s vintage poured basement was surprisingly flat & plumb, which allowed me to use 3" reclaimed roofing iso and 1x furring TapConned to the concrete 24" o.c. and hang the gypsum on the furring,...

Cheaper than an indirect would be drainwater heat recovery heat exchanger, which would give you continous showering capability (no recovery time necessary) with the embedded coil, even with all zones...

XPS is R5/inch when new, R4.2/inch when fully outgassed (in 50 years or so.)

You CAN'T for get the thermal break, especially if you go with 2" foam between the studs. Most species used for framing...

First if you put the studs against the concrete you'll have a HUGE thermal bridge undercutting the performance of the foam, and provide a wicking path for moisture.

Instead, but the foam directly...

Since the cold water flow volume will be so much lower than the hot water volume, adding the second line for the cold side wasn't really necessary, just adds to the complexity.

Idea #1 works, #2...

The issue may come down to "... if sized, installed and maintained properly", which may be hard to do, since the smallest Lynx has a min-fire of 30KBTU/hr, which is almost CERTAINLY above the design...

You tend to get higher efficiency out of separate mini-splits than a 2-head multi, as long as they are reasonably well matched to their peak loads, and cost-wise it's often a wash. At 3 heads or...

Any quotes I've seen to date in my area for changing from steam to condensing HW using the same radiation have been way beyond any reasonable ROI (let alone a higher ROI), though probably better than...

The ROI on heat pump water heaters in an SC climate goes beyond mere hot water heating, since for half the year (or more) it's doing double-duty as a dehumidifier/air-conditioner. In tight...

"What if set point was 140 and I mixed down?"

Do the math- it's 7th grade algebra.

You'll get some tub-fill capacity boost, but to get very much you'll need more of a bump than moving from...

Thanks for the reference on the Taco SR-501OR Fuel Mizer! Specs-wise it looks like a better mousetrap than some of the other retrofit ODR controls.

Most insurance carriers won't void anything as long as the local inspectors signed off on the retrofit conversion burner installation. If the boiler is more than 10 years old, the value of any...

...which is why the indirect needs to be sized for the biggest tub you have to fill, but beyond that it doesn't much matter.

Even if run to depletion with a gusher-sidespray shower in conjunction...

Drainwater heat recovery units are a bit hard to find in the US- they can be ordered (at full retail) through Home Depot, and most of the vendors have buy-direct web pages but you have to pay...

For the heat distribution via steam radiators you need a steam boiler (which is not technically a furnace.)

The high boiler temperatures required to make 215F+ steam result in higher stack...

If I misconstrued your initial posts as astroturfing, I apologize. And while it has seemed to me you were both advocating a bit too hard as well as protesting a wee bit too much at the mere...

The high mass floors are definitely evening out the diurnal temperature swings and moderating the solar gains to good benefit. When you insulate the basement it'll be even better, since the...

Consider this another vote for installing a conversion burner w/ indirect hot water heater and smarter heat-purging controls. Odds are pretty good you can get this done for under $3K, maybe even...

If you buy through EFI (link found on my first post) you can get a decent ~53% efficiency 4" x 48" for about $600, (delivered), which is far cheaper than any manufacturer's buy-direct or the Home...

You need to add up both the length of the pipe, and the equivalent lengths of the fittings the water flows through, and apply that to the pressure drop with flow nomograph.

If you have three heads...

Some commercial washing operations have also been able to reap a real performance boosts from drainwater heat recovery heat exchangers, provided that there is some drain flow concurrent with filling....

A dehumidifier converts a latent cooling load (moisture) to a sensible cooling load (air temperature), plus adds the heat o the energy used to turn the compressor to the room.

That's fine in the...

We're talking only 4 heads here, and a fairly hefty 68psi (static), so it just MIGHT cut it with 1/2" if it's a relatively short run, since you're probably looking at ~2-2.5gpm per head, or ~10 gpm...

Yes, adding more sprays depletes the tank faster.

At 68psi you'd still be getting "pretty good" gallons per minute (gpm) through half-inch, but if it's a long run it could become the limiting...

"Sub-slab depressurization" vents designed for radon remediation will dry out basements when groundwater is the primary moisture source, but summertime outdoor air in Indiana will always be adding,...