INGROUND STUFF FOR THE SHOP

A lot will happen in the next two - three weeks. I will be doing the under ground infrastructure install for the shop. Along with that I'm having the propane tank moved to the back of the shop (150 ft). I'll be putting in the ground, 130 ft of hot water insulated pex lines from the wood boiler for the infloor heat, approximately 175 ft of gas line, 150 ft of both telephone and cable. I'll rent a trencher for half a day or so for all the trenching. Then the attention turns to hooking all that stuff up. I'll start first with the gas line for the heater in the shop so I can get some heat in there, then turn to the infloor heat. I'll need to build an area on the wall at the back of the shop to hold all the equipment & lines for the floor heat. It'll have a stainless steel manifold with three water circuits (8 water connections, a supply in & out, 2 lines for each circuit, with flow & temp gauges), a thermostatically controlled Taco pump, mixing valve, and associated wiring for all this. They're not exciting, (inground stuff never is) but here are some pics to see whats happening.

 Boiler on the right, trench will go all the way to the back corner of the shop. Just past the wood pile on the left is where the trench will split off for the cable & phone lines to enter the shop.

 Standing in front of the boiler, the trench will go up towards the house around the Oak tree to the right, near where the shovel handle is. This for the gas. Just out of sight to the left is where the propane tank is presently located.

 The stake at the bottom of the pic is where the trench will "T" into the long trench. This is cable and phone line

 At the bottom of the pic you can see the top of a stake. This again is for "T" into the long trench up to the house. On the side of the house are the boxes for phone and where the cable will be picked up.

 The side of the boiler is open, you can see the Taco pump & water lines that presently go into the house. Visible is the connections for the shop with valves. I'll have to dig by hand here, remove the lower side of the blue panel beneath the open door to get the water lines in. There is a little micro processor that runs a solenoid for the draft door on the front door of the boiler . Right now the draft door cycles open at 175 deg and closes at 185 deg. The max temp is adjustable, I may raise it up to 195 deg. The 10 deg swing is not adjustable so if I raise the max the lower temp automatically gets raised also. The yellow stuff is spayed foam insulation from the factory, the entire water tank is insulated. This holds approx 385 gallons of water. That alot of water to keep that hot. Underneath the black plastic is all hard wood we cut and split ourselves. It's all walnut from downed trees in a walnut grove located on a relatives farm. We're going to fire the boiler up on Thanksgiving day.

 This is the view from the corner of the shop. The bricks are where the propane tank is going to be located. I made sure they are level and parallel with the shop.

Drawing of the trench layout. All the utilities will be in the same trench for a short distance directly behind the garage.