Nerbles

Today, Roth Green Energy came out to start laying the in-floor radiant tubing. I guess a couple of the guys got to the site nice and early, but none of the materials were there yet! When the materials finally arrived, the two Roth guys as well as the delivery guy got to work. However, the delivery guy moved on after a little while, and then one of the Roth guys got called away on an emergency - so that left only one person working on the install! Even so, he managed to get about halfway done today - and then he ran out of materials. So, the next supply is scheduled to come tomorrow morning, and hopefully there will be a team working on it again so that nobody has to work alone. (Well, I guess he wasn't alone - my dad was there observing, and he doesn't like to just sit around and watch without getting involved, so he was able to at least be a gofer.) I stopped by after work to get some pictures:

These are S45 Creatherm insulating panels that help prevent heat loss into the ground. There is 2" of foam in the base and additional foam in the nodules (which we affectionately call "nerbles"), which gives us a thermal resistance value of R10. The nerbles are there so that the pex tubing can simply be walked in and be held in place. By using these panels we get the benefits of a much easier install than having to tie the tubes down to remesh, cleaner (and more avoidable later) pex lines, and double duty as a thermal barrier.

The huge spool of pex tubing.

Today's progress.

As you can see, the panels make for a very clean layout of the tubing. 

Looking good so far!