An installer is asked to provide a 4-ton-rated (48,000 Btu/h) geothermal heat pump system that can provide space heating and domestic hot water.

With homes now doing dual duty as both a residence and a workplace, many people are spending double the time in the same space. This lifestyle shift has launched a home-renovation trend for people who are looking to change their current living spaces to better align with the needs of life and work in one place.

District systems, which have been around for centuries, provide buildings with a product created with technology beyond what an individual can either afford or apply. The primary advantage is the delivery of more cost-effective heating or cooling to the building.

The radiant heating market is one that took the industry by storm in the early 2000s. More than two decades later, the acceptance and applications of radiant systems have grown exponentially. Experts describe the radiant heating market in 2022 as “consistent” and “expanding,” citing labor, material and logistic uniformity shortages as the top challenges hindering radiant projects.

During the late, great Les Nelson’s last AHR conference in Chicago back in 2018, he asked me what our hydronics industry needed the most. He was on a mission to increase the visibility of the Radiant Professionals Alliance and give the industry something that it could really use. 

Most hydronic systems have the boiler running up to 180° F with water returning from the system at 160°. This rarely happens in real life, but it’s the traditional way we do things.

 All boilers that burn hydrocarbon fuels such as natural gas, propane, oil or wood produce water vapor as a byproduct of combustion.

Because the price of fuel oil has increased dramatically over the last several months, an installer with lots of experience in installing conventional oil-fired boilers is asked to install a pellet-fired boiler.

Do you work on closed-loop hydronic heating and cooling systems? Does your installation or service include equipment protection? If so, does it include a permanent magnet? If not, it should, and here's why…

I called the plumber because there’s an immediacy to plumbing; and I’m old enough to know that it’s best for me not to touch pipes. To each his own trade.