The Home Stretch, Part 2

Well, Ted finished up in the GARN BARN today. Actually, there was not a great deal of work, but it still took most of the day to wrap up the plumbing, some wiring, and some leak testing.

For the GARN distribution circuit, we have two loads that we will serve. The house worst case is a 100K BTU/hr load, and the Outbuilding is a 75K BTU/hr load. As I previously stated, our plan is to pipe the BARN next summer, so for now the only load the GARN will see is the house. With that said we chose to use a standard supply and return manifold for the distribution. We had previously plumbed the BLACK steel 1-1/2" piping from the back of the GARN, so all that remained was the manifolds, the pump, and the pex connection. We also added the Iso-Flange for the barn pump on the supply manifold, and a ball valve on the retun manifold for the outbuilding return line.

This all went pretty quickly, and before I knew it Ted had finished the last sweat joint, and we were filling the GARN from the fill line we had added in the house potable water circuit. I flushed the GARN out, drained the flush water, and started filling again. The manufacture of the GARN ships a chemical additive with the unit to treat the unit once you begin to fill. The purpose of the chemicals are to prevent corrosion of the unit. So I added, and allowed the fill line to run for about 5 hours. We are on a well, so I wanted to give it a break. I will start it up again in the morning.

We also installed a temp probe well for future remote monitoring, a sight gauge to eliminate the need to check water level through the manhole(Thanks swamp yankee from the Hearth.com forums). Tomorrow is the big day, hopefully we'll get it lit!