August 24, 2009
The plumbing begins at the well, and today the well drillers drilled it. As expected based on neighboring wells, they hit good water at 130 feet. The well has a 5-inch PVC casing, as is common for wells in this area.
September 8, 2009
The water line has been run into the mechanical room, and the pressure tank is installed. The red tubes in this photo are for the in-floor heating and aren’t part of the water supply, but the pressure tank pipe had to cross behind them.
March 3, 2010
The Plumbing and mechanical inspection is complete, and this photo shows the finished plumbing wall in the laundry room. See Solar Heat Design and Hydronic Heat Design for descriptions of the individual parts of this system.
Here’s a close-up of the manifold that distributes water to the PEX lines running to each fixture. The next-smaller available manifold didn’t have enough hot lines and this one has a lot of cold ports to spare, because the lines running to the garden spigots and toilets are completely separate.
March 12, 2010
Now that the connections atop the heat storage tank are sealed up, Bruce insulated above the tank with fiberglass batts. This reduces the heat loss but still allows access to the tank connections if needed.
