Central boiler install

[BuschLover]

I have a friend who lives in a secluded area with many acres of timber. He is getting ready to order a central boiler outdoor wood furnace. He asked me to post a thread to get the opinions of other people about the installation of the thermal plex pipe. He wonders if it would be better to put the pipe inside a corrugated pipe to help reduce heat loss and protect the pipe. He is in central Iowa and wondered about opinions on the depth to lay it. He is also putting it in his garage which is 100 feet from his house. He wants to be able to load it in the morning when he gets in his truck to leave for work and load it when he pulls his truck in at night. Any thoughts on this? His insurance company is ok with it but he said if they would not cover it he would drop the insurance on the garage as its value is not that great. Any thoughts or opinions would be appreciated. I don't want this thread to turn into a battle over whether they are good or bad. Thanks

 

[Butch(OH)]

My stove dealer says that there is an occasional problem with the PEX and recommended Urecon with ordinary pex pulled through it so that new pex would not require excavation. Made sense to me but I also see that it is sold on a sister site to my stove Mfg. I know of no problems with Thermopex, as a matter of fact everyone I know is totally satisfied with Central Boiler. I'd just go with what they recommend and not worry.

http://www.outdoorstovesupplies.com/Search.bok?category=Insulation:Urecon+Insulated+PVC+Pipe

 

[MS-310]

I would go with the "new" thermo pex or micro flex, I wouldnt worrie about the pex line screawing up, anyways by that time you will need a new stove and by then they will have some thing better.
I dont know about central Iowa but I would go at least 2 feet to 4 feet down in the ground. Buy the good stuff you will be very happy.

 

[LightningLoader]

We had asbestos around our pipes, which seemed to work well, but we couldn't ever convince anybody to do repairs on our house till we got rid of it. Could the material you're talking about in this thread be used on old pipes too as a wrap, or does it have to be done during installation?

 

[windthrown]

Central Boiler and PEX line

We installed a CB here last fall and WE LOVE IT! Works great, heats great. Easy to manage. If I had it to do all over again, I would do what we did, except maybe earlier in the fall.

As for PEX, it has been around for a while now and seems to work fine for us. I have a short section outside buried about 18 inches deep here, but we do not get much ground freezing (some ground freeze here last winter for a few days, maybe 6 inches deep at most though). I used blue and red one inch PEX lines (one out and one back) that I wrapped in 10 ft sections of foam pipe insulation. Then I stuffed them into 4 inch corrigated plastic drain pipe. It works really well, and I see that several companies are actually making that exact style of insulated dual line PEX and selling it online now.

The biggest issue to to keep the buried PEX (or whatever) boiler water lines from making contact with ground water. That is the largest heat robber in these systems. Corrigated plastic drain pine will keep that from happening. The insulation helps keep the pipes warm. If you are going to bury the boiler water supply line pipe in OH, 2-3 feet should be good enough to keep anyone from digging them up accidentaly and keep them free from frost/ice in winter.

Good choice! :greenchainsaw: