This is a tale of two radiant heating professionals in New Mexico: the first a pioneer, the second a perfectionist. Their efforts are separated by roughly three decades.
What the first radiant professional (who we’ll refer to as John Doe) started, the second, Keefer Rader, is dramatically improving. But Rader isn’t just improving New Mexico’s radiant systems one at a time. He’s taken education into his own hands, teaching his competitors for the benefit of the entire hydronic industry in the Southwest.
To begin, we must rewind to the Albuquerque of the 1990s. This was the epicenter of the Southwest’s radiant awakening, thanks in large part to Mr. Doe. He began promoting residential radiant in the mid-1970s.
Doe’s radiant heating approach gained real traction with builders in the area due to his competitive rates and a creative marketing campaign.
Simple systems
Doe insisted that simplicity in a radiant system keeps costs down. The design he employed was notable because supply water came out of the boiler, went to one or more manifolds, and returned directly to the boiler. One pump was used to accomplish this and there was no mixing or tempering valve or primary-secondary piping.
With this simple approach, his installation crews would tube two, sometimes three, homes per day. In 2001 alone, it was estimated that Doe installed 1 million lineal feet of radiant tubing in approximately 200 homes. This work, over years, meant that 25 percent of the single-family homes in the Albuquerque area were heated with radiant floors. It’s worth noting that other contractors in the area were installing similar radiant systems, too.
Twenty-some years later, however, it’s become painfully evident that with radiant, simplification can be taken too far.
We now know that pumping radiant system water straight through a cast iron boiler without mixing supply and return water is a recipe for flue gas condensate, leading to boiler corrosion. There are other potential issues that can be attributed to this approach as well, like short-cycling boilers, overheating of floors, lack of energy efficiency, damage to radiant tubing, etc.
The prevailing thought at the time, at least among some installers in the Southwest, was that these simple systems were immune to flue gas condensate issues for two reasons. First, by using many small zones, flow rates were low. Second, Albuquerque’s high elevation (5,000 feet above sea level) inhibited the production of condensate.
What resulted in many Albuquerque homes in the following years has proven these assumptions false.
Simplicity can be taken too far
“Doe was a pioneer, an early adopter. That’s the lens through which you must view his work,” said Rader, who owns Outlaw Mechanical in Albuquerque. “For this reason, I can’t discredit him or throw him under the bus. On the fly, he was figuring out how to sell radiant when few others were. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have a hydronic business.”
Rader attributes the scope of the hydronic market in the Southwest to Doe’s early efforts. New Mexico ranks very high for its number of radiant heated homes per capita.
“Some of Doe’s install practices were great,” continued Rader. “For example, he ran half-inch pipe from the boiler room to his thermostat locations to use as a conduit for the T-stat wire. He was also one of the first to install remote manifolds and actually maintain consistent loop lengths. That makes it much easier to fix these systems 30 years down the road. Unfortunately for homeowners, a lot of them need to be fixed, and that’s job security for me.”
Those original systems leave much to be desired in regard to efficiency, comfort and longevity. Quite possibly the biggest issue with the circa-1990 installations is that improper tubing was often used.
“Non-oxygen barrier PEX was typically used, but so was Sola Roll and polybutylene pipe,” said Rader. “I’ve seen a great number of pipe failures as a result. Even if the pipe doesn’t have a catastrophic failure, an oxygenated system paired with a cast iron boiler creates potential for serious problems.”
“Doe also set a precedent that radiant heat should be priced by the square foot,” continued Rader. “To this day, builders call me to ask what my square foot cost for radiant is. That’s the wrong approach. Every system is different. Radiant systems can’t be priced by the foot, especially not today.”
Thanks to the mediocre performance associated with these 20- or 30-year-old radiant systems, many retirement-age New Mexicans firmly believe that radiant systems are uncomfortable, inefficient, costly to maintain, and will eventually fail. Adding insult to injury, Millennials around Albuquerque grew up listening to their parents bemoan radiant systems.
Regional problems
Up until about two years ago, Rader witnessed a slow but steady decline in the hydronic market in NM. Sure, some of that decline is the result of competitive technologies, but Rader points most of the blame at the experience homeowners had with early radiant systems.
“When I look at my customer base, about 20 percent of them have Sola Roll or polybutylene pipe that’s likely to fail over the next five years,” said Rader. “Of the pipe failures that I witness regularly, 30 years tends to be the lifespan for a system with Sola Roll or polybutylene.”
To make matters worse, many in the trade continue to install radiant systems the same way they were done in the 90s. Thankfully, the plastic pipe industry – through education – has done an admirable job mitigating the challenges of oxygenated systems. Rarely is non-barrier pipe used for radiant applications these days, but more than a few new installations lack primary-secondary piping or mixing valves.
“If we don’t start rewriting the script and making these changes, the radiant industry in New Mexico, and Southwest in general, will falter,” added Rader. “A colleague of mine in southern Colorado has the same impression I do. Many homeowners aren’t repairing their systems, let alone building new homes with radiant heat. Instead of repairing, people are abandoning hydronics. The answer is simple. We need education.”
A long-standing relationship
When Rader founded Outlaw Mechanical in 2008, he sought to work with a smaller distributor. He knew, from experience with a plumbing company he operated and sold previously in Colorado, that the relationships he could build with a locally owned supply house would serve him well in the future.
“I became loyal to Doc Savage Supply, and to this day, I buy from them almost exclusively,” said Rader. “Jacob Coffman, their in-house HVAC and hydronics guru, has helped me immensely. He remains a friend and one of my most valuable resources.”
As the years passed, Rader stopped doing air conditioning work and focused on becoming one of the region’s most knowledgeable hydronic specialists. He attributes that personal growth to Coffman as well as the training he sought on his own, most notably through U.S. Boiler Company and Taco Comfort Solutions. The main challenge he faced, however, was procuring the product he wanted to install.
“Doc Savage didn’t stock U.S. Boiler products,” said Rader. “I would regularly drive to Colorado to purchase Alpine, Aspen and Series 2 boilers. So, I pressed Doc Savage to bring in the U.S. Boiler line. About two years ago, they did.”
Not long after, Rader installed an Alta condensing boiler at Doc Savage to provide heat to a snowmelt system in addition to serving as a functional display and live-fire training boiler.
Rader and Coffman have often discussed the need for more hydronic training opportunities in the Albuquerque area. They know there’s a need for boiler-specific training.
“Roughly 40 percent of our customers are involved with hydronic work,” said Coffman. “This area has been starved for boiler training, so Keefer and I came up with the idea of hosting a U.S. Boiler Company authorized factory training session.”
Educating the competition
“Some installers in the Southwest still approach radiant heating the wrong way, and that’s what we hope to change,” said Rader. “After speaking with Coffman about hosting a boiler training session at Doc Savage, I brought the topic to Dave Hansen, product marketing manager, and Chris Mitchell, VP of Sales, both representing U.S. Boiler Company. They asked me if I’d help lead the training event and I agreed. We need to clean the slate of old habits.”
The initial training event included two presentations. Rader presented “Hydronics in the Southwest” while Hansen’s course was called “Speed and Precision: Elevate your Hi-Efficiency Boiler Work.” Roughly 60 attendees travelled to Doc Savage Supply for the event.
Rader discussed the importance of primary-secondary piping and/or the need to include a mixing valve when a cast iron boiler is paired with radiant. He then touched on proper pump sizing and the difference between Deta-T and Delta-P circulators. Attendees learned how to read a pump curve.
Finally, he discussed the different types of radiant tubing, especially those technicians may encounter in homes throughout the area. This led to properly identifying an oxygenated system.
“If technicians can’t identify an oxygenated system, it’ll lead to a lifetime of maintenance nightmares,” said Rader. I’ve spoken to homeowners who’ve been forced to replace conventional boilers every five years simply because the system is oxygenated and the boiler is condensing. The answer to this problem always includes magnetic filters, water treatment – like Fernox, Sentinel or Hercules – and isolation of the boiler from the oxygenated portion of the system with a heat exchanger, much like you’d isolate a glycol loop for snowmelt.”
Hansen’s presentation explained the new time-saving automatic features of the Alta condensing boiler and reviewed enhancements in conventional cast iron boiler technology, like heating block construction, integral low water cut offs, and induced-draft/direct-venting. He finished his presentation by taking attendees outside to see the U.S. Boiler Company condensing van.
“If we all get better, we all benefit, and so does the homeowner,” said Hansen. “A big thanks to Doc Savage Supply and to the tradespeople that showed up for the training event. It’s obvious that some contractors in the Albuquerque area are committed to changing the future of the local hydronic market.”