Ridgeway Home Services

Summertime is the perfect time to line up your snowmelt projects and installations heading into the upcoming unpredictable weather patterns of the changing seasons. For Jason Ridgeway, owner of Ridgeway Home Services, West Chicago, Ill., a provider of indoor home comfort services for the Chicagoland area, snowmelt has been added to his comfort portfolio, and Read more

Summertime is the perfect time to line up your snowmelt projects and installations heading into the upcoming unpredictable weather patterns of the changing seasons. For Jason Ridgeway, owner of Ridgeway Home Services, West Chicago, Ill., a provider of indoor home comfort services for the Chicagoland area, snowmelt has been added to his comfort portfolio, and an additional technology he encourages potential HVAC customers to pursue. “What used to be a popular choice for larger homes, snowmelt is becoming more commonplace in ‘regular’ sized homes in the area,” said Ridgeway.

Jason Ridgeway, Ridgeway Home Services, REHAU, REHAU PEX, REHAU manifolds, snowmelt, hydronics, HVAC, tekmar, grundfos pumps

Ridgeway was called to the near west suburban neighborhood to install snowmelt for a residence’s driveway/walkway, and in addition, believe it or not, a miniature railroad/train track system—which still runs, by the way—that meanders throughout the customer’s property.

The original homeowner decided to install the train tracks in the yard for his children and grandchildren, and when he sold the home to the current owner, “the railroad had become a neighborhood institution of sorts, with neighbors pleading to keep the landmark train system, and keep it operational,” said Ridgeway.

Jason Ridgeway, Ridgeway Home Services, REHAU, REHAU PEX, REHAU manifolds, snowmelt, hydronics, HVAC, tekmar, grundfos pumpsThe project began with paving contractors removing the tracks and labeling them accordingly, while a welder repaired the tracks and fitted them atop the tubing, which was installed later.

Ridgeway began the snowmelt project in September of 2017, adding the “oomph” behind the system in the basement mechanical room. Prefabbed in his shop, Ridgeway constructed the mechanical panel, which consists of Grundfos circulators, an Axiom filling station, tekmar controls for the brains behind the snowmelt system sensing, and an HTP Elite 399 boiler—installed onsite. On a side note, Ridgeway left stub outs on the boiler panel in the event of upgraded in-home radiant heat, or in the case of a future boiler change-out.

Jason Ridgeway, Ridgeway Home Services, REHAU, REHAU PEX, REHAU manifolds, snowmelt, hydronics, HVAC, tekmar, grundfos pumpsCovering approximately 3,000 sq. ft. of outdoor space—with approximately 4,500 linear ft. of REHAU PEX tubing—which includes the area of the tracks, driveway and walkways, Ridgeway began the multiple week installation—due in part to an arduous concrete pour and curing timeline—with time to spare for the upcoming winter months.

Ridgeway came away impressed with the ease of the tubing installation with both the PEXGUN installation tool, an automatic, lightweight and compact hand-held tool that attaches PEX pipe to rebar or wire mesh, and his commitment to REHAU products, in this case, the tubing uncoiler. “With the PEXGUN tubing installation tool, and REHAU uncoiler, I personally can put down 300 ft. of tubing, the same as three guys using zip ties in equal amount of time or better. The extra plus is that I don’t have to go back and cut off the tails when I’m done,” said Ridgeway.

The supply water temperature was set to 160 F with the slab melting temperature set point at 34-36 F. The cold-water shutoff was set to -10 F.

Jason Ridgeway, Ridgeway Home Services, REHAU, REHAU PEX, REHAU manifolds, snowmelt, hydronics, HVAC, tekmar, grundfos pumpsThe intelligence of the system is controlled by a tekmar 090 snow and ice sensor and a tekmar 665 snowmelt control system. Basically, the in-ground sensor—used in conjunction with the tekmar snow melting controls—“senses” the precipitation and intuitively correlates the freezing or below freezing temperatures and automatically detects precipitation as snow or sleet on the applicable surface, which tells the system to activate.

The tekmar 665 control uses the snow/ice detection sensor in order to automatically melt snow using Pulse Width Modulation and slab outdoor reset to maintain slab temperature. It is capable of controlling a single boiler, a system pump, and providing a signal when melting is enabled.

Jason Ridgeway, Ridgeway Home Services, REHAU, REHAU PEX, REHAU manifolds, snowmelt, hydronics, HVAC, tekmar, grundfos pumpsThe existing system is one zone but is set up for the possibility of adding multiple zones, which is advantageous to Ridgeway. He will be going back to the residence to add snowmelt to existing pavers around the pool area in the back of the house. This added snowmelt will pull hot water from the existing HTP boiler.

Ridgeway ran into one challenge during the installation when the system, upon initial start-up, kept experiencing a drop in pressure. Initially thinking there was a leak in the lines somewhere, Ridgeway eventually resolved the issue by diagnosing the problem, finding an unusually high content of air in the system. An elongated purging of excess air in the system solved that minor glitch.

Jason Ridgeway, Ridgeway Home Services, REHAU, REHAU PEX, REHAU manifolds, snowmelt, hydronics, HVAC, tekmar, grundfos pumpsThe end result is a beautifully paved snowmelt area, complete with added railroad tracks crisscrossing through the driveway. Needless to say, when all was said and done, and a full season of experiencing snowstorms, ice and a wintry mix in between, the end result was one happy homeowner.

Manifold images: All REHAU manifolds are pressurized to 80psi.

 

 

 

When Jason Ridgeway of Ridgeway Home Services, West Chicago, Ill., says he takes pride in his work because “we like what we do,” it’s pretty evident in his installations. Recently, at a new construction custom house in the trendy Wrigleyville neighborhood, the homeowner asked for a hydronic snowmelt system and hydronic floor heating.   Ridgeway Read more

When Jason Ridgeway of Ridgeway Home Services, West Chicago, Ill., says he takes pride in his work because “we like what we do,” it’s pretty evident in his installations. Recently, at a new construction custom house in the trendy Wrigleyville neighborhood, the homeowner asked for a hydronic snowmelt system and hydronic floor heating.

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The nearly complete radiant and snowmelt installation in Wrigleyville.

 

Ridgeway installed REHAU under floor metal plates with 1/2″ REHAU o2 barrier pipe. This allowed for the added floor radiant and even heat distribution with out adding to the floor height. The 2-man crew also added a 80-gallon indirect hot water heater and even snowmelt to the project in the front and back porch areas as well as walkways. Ridgeway custom built a hydronic panel to tie this all in.

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Since this was a new construction site, the electrician had not been there to install power. “We had to get this up and running in order to heat floors so the flooring contractor could put down his floor which he would not do without floor heat running even though the furnaces have the place heated to 75 degrees. The electrical wires in the pictures are just temped in to a outlet until Sparky finishes,” says Ridgeway.

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Ridgeway has a purge set up on the panel so they can purge all radiant floors from one location. “This entire system is filled with glycol so we want to switch hoses as little as possible,” says Ridgeway.

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A Ridgeway radiant selfie: Ridgeway, right, and his tech, Mario, take time to show off their work.

Some of the challenges were that the mechanical room was very small to begin with and now they are adding a boiler as well as piping and an indirect tank. “Things where very cramped,” says Ridgeway.

Quick Notes:

• According to Ridgeway, we have a boiler pump for the boiler on closely spaced tees. There’s a snowmelt pump not installed yet that will be over the door and a indirect pump for the indirect heater not installed yet. Then we have the one pump you can see which will actually be replaced with a Grundfos Magna series pump due to the multiple zones. We typically use the low loss headers but did not on this job.

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• Balancing is done at the REHAU PROBALANCE manifold for the floor radiant. Temperatures are balanced with motorized mixing valves and HTP VISON 2 control Zones by Caleffi zone control.

• ProPress is great. I solder and braze with the best of them. I have done everything from 4″ massive boilers and chillers pipe work to 1/2 plumbing and no issues and no leaks. With a 20-year track record and 10s of thousands of fittings.

• All this and we’re allowed only 4 feet of wall in which to install. Not shown yet is the domestic hot water that’s going to be installed in front of the manifolds between boiler and panel.

• Zip ties are temporary until the clevis hangers show up; they did a great job holding pipe straight while they put it in.

IMG_8746• Snowmelt — we install tubing in the driveway, walkway and stairs and pump hot water through it from a boiler. The concrete then gets to a set-point temp above 32 degrees and melts the snow and ice on the drive turning it into water then vapor. This way no salting, plowing or shoveling is needed.

Energy Savings:
Two furnaces and ac systems are both 2 stage 17 seer
Boiler — Lochinvar knight 211,000 (97% efficient)

Water heater —Lochinvar indirect

Location: Chicago Ill. — Wrigleyville
Date started: Jan 18 2015
Date Finished: Projected date to finish July 20th
Size of Project: 6,000-sq ft-home
Workers onsite: 2
Budget: $68,000.00

https://youtu.be/G6oOo1OBQDw Mechanical Hub is proud to present its continuing Onsite Video Series. In this video, we feature Jason Ridgeway, owner of Ridgeway Home Services, as he talks about this 24,000-sq.-ft. custom residential geo/radiant project, which features Caleffi products Read more

Mechanical Hub is proud to present its continuing Onsite Video Series. In this video, we feature Jason Ridgeway, owner of Ridgeway Home Services, as he talks about this 24,000-sq.-ft. custom residential geo/radiant project, which features Caleffi products.

https://youtu.be/B3gqkjPOad8   Mechanical Hub is proud to present its first Onsite Video. In this first video, the guys visit with Jason Ridgeway, owner of Ridgeway Home Services, to discuss a 24,000-sq.-ft. custom residential job on beautiful Geneva Lake in Fontana, Wis. Two years in the works, learn how Ridgeway and his crew installed 55-tons of Read more

 

Mechanical Hub is proud to present its first Onsite Video. In this first video, the guys visit with Jason Ridgeway, owner of Ridgeway Home Services, to discuss a 24,000-sq.-ft. custom residential job on beautiful Geneva Lake in Fontana, Wis. Two years in the works, learn how Ridgeway and his crew installed 55-tons of geothermal and 1.7 miles of PEX tubing for in-floor radiant, plus much more!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9YuER_P51U Read more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9YuER_P51U