We got a whole floor done, just the two of us, this past weekend.  We learned a whole lot along the way too.  Little things like exactly where to drill the holes in the joists, how to alternate the hoses so they don’t cross over, how to work keep the spool from binding up…. and a few others.  It was a good education in handling PEX.

We had to learn a new lesson every joist.  The widths varying between 12″ and 24″ had us changing strategies every few feet.  The first circuit, we drilled holes on top of each other at the end of the joists.  This was not the best way.  On the 2nd circuit, we drilled them as high up as we dared next to each other.  This allowed us to alternate inside and outside hoses so we would not have any cross overs.  This resulted in a flatter layout with more parallel hoses which allowed us to use more heat transfer plates. (We got 400 plates and have 14 gaps for 3 floors (42 gaps) so…. 9.5 plates / gap).

We’ve still got two floors to go.  By the time we get to the basement we should be pretty good at this.