Terra-Dome Earth Shelter Build

[patrick_g]

The conduit is better because you can get bends to land inside walls and it will allow replacement of failed PEX in future.

I have seen lots of bends land inside walls using continuous roll tubing. IT is sup[er easy to pull PEX through continuous roll tubing. Pulling it around even 45 degree elbows can be a night mare, especially if there are 2 or more in the run. I think 90 degree elbows are just NOT a good idea for this application.

I have quizzed several big time users of PEX regarding failure rates of tubing and fittings. Fittings apparently do not cause problems unless they are crimped wrong to start with, visibly. Still waiting to hear about a PEX failure due to age. Some PEX is NOT UV treated and when exposed to sunlight it looses robustness. Frequently PEX is stored in outside storage yards and may be brought inside a roll or bundle of straight pieces at a time to be sold. This may have lost some of its robustness and is to be avoided like the plague.

Only use UV stabilized and then I'd avoid any long term sunlight exposure.

I don't want to be too pessimistic but I've pulled stuff in conduit with nothing sharper than a 45 degree sweep and they cause a dramatic increase in difficulty. I hope all this goes way easier than my experience tends to make me anticipate.

Pat

 

[mjncad]

Has any of the recent flooding affected you Sam?

 

[sajurcaju]

Hello Steve,
I am pleased to hear about your progress. I guess you are moved in? Right! I am impressed with your concrete guy. I would be interested to see more details on this conduit install.

We are busy with installing conduit ourselves. We are using the Schedule 40 rigid PVC for everything but the black and gray water drains. We are installing 1-1/4" conduit to later pull/push our 3/4" PEX water supply and 3/4" conduit to pull/push our 1/2" water supply lines. If anyone has experience pulling PEX through conduit please provide your thoughts. Pictures attached.

Hi Sam,
I wrote a reply but don't see that it posted. Maybe you'll read this twice.
Our plumber ran our pex through that ~1" black poly tubing like you would use on a sprinkler.

I'd be happy to answer questions on the conduit, but it is all under concrete now, so you'll have to do with the pics we have. All those metal plates cast in the floor were lined up and shimmed by the concrete pour foreman. He spent most of last Saturday with a laser checking heights. They came out great, none sticking up a bit.

We are imminently sleeping there, if we can move enough boxes to make a person sized hole.

Steve

 

[SamWalton]

Has any of the recent flooding affected you Sam?

We are or shall I say have been lucky when it comes to floods. I guess we would need to get 6" in an hour to possibly flood where we are renting and on the mountain our home in process should never be affected.

 

[mjncad]

We are or shall I say have been lucky when it comes to floods. I guess we would need to get 6" in an hour to possibly flood where we are renting and on the mountain our home in process should never be affected.

Glad to hear you're high and dry.

 

[SamWalton]

We have made some good progress on our under slab conduit installations. We completed the ten multi-media conduits from the east side of our home and have eight more from the west side to finish. Our Multi-media connections are composed of computer network, video, phone, two-way radio, door bell and smoke alarm connections. They will all come up inside a wall into an enclosure which opens to the inside of the closet where most of the connections will be to the Gigabyte network switch. We also covered the seven conduits for PEX water supply to the east side of our home with a sandy mixture to separate and support the HVAC plenum. We still have plenty of room for our PEX radiant floor heat lines on each side of our plenum. Our conduit is quite busy through our home to allow replacement of any under slab utility with the exception of the radiant system. We home to be completing all conduit requirements on the west modules and moving on to the HVAC pressure loops and getting our floor to the proper elevation for insulation, PEX radiant loops and 5/8 rebar on a 2'x'2 arrangement.

 

[sajurcaju]

Sam, you are making some serious headway. It looks to me like you might pour your floors before too long.

I like what you're doing with pass through breaks in the footing and all the thought you've put into the conduit runs. That will be a big plus if you ever need to make changes.

Steve

 

[sajurcaju]

Hi Sam,

One of our bathrooms has a cool floor. It is probably because that is the most buried part of the house. The consequence is a little condensation on the tile surface on muggy days, also the shower rug stays damp all the time. The only fix I've thought of is to put a little electric heat with a low speed fan in that corner.

If I were doing it again (and using in-floor heat), I'd consider running a zone just for the bathroom, so it could always be a little warmer. Just a thought, don't know how it will fit with your plans.

Steve

 

[SamWalton]

Hi Sam,

One of our bathrooms has a cool floor. It is probably because that is the most buried part of the house. The consequence is a little condensation on the tile surface on muggy days, also the shower rug stays damp all the time. The only fix I've thought of is to put a little electric heat with a low speed fan in that corner.

If I were doing it again (and using in-floor heat), I'd consider running a zone just for the bathroom, so it could always be a little warmer. Just a thought, don't know how it will fit with your plans.

Steve

Steve,
We were planning to heat all floors maybe even the garage.

 

[sajurcaju]

One more bit from our move-in. When we first moved in, outdoor temps had been in the low 70's for awhile. The house temp was running 63...we ran the heat for a day, then it warmed up outside. Now, no heat and outdoor temps in the 75-85 range, indoors is staying 68-70. So these things do work!