DIY Outdoor wood burner Insulating Underground PEX Tubing Insulated HydroPex

A video on how I made my own underground insulated pex tubing using 8 inch corrugated tubing and 1" oxygen barrier PEX.

Total cost for 200' of insulated was a little over $800 and included 200 extra feet of 1" pex tubing (bought 2 rolls of 300' - with the extra for the indoors section (yes - I will also have some leftovers, probably 100' or so) I'll try to answer any questions/comments left below - and once I get the system running I'll update you on how well it works and what kind of temperature drop I get between the burner and the house.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Outdoor
• Wood
• Burner
• Project
• hydronic
• heater
• boiler
• woodstove
• burning
• DIY
• PEX
• tubing
• Hydropex
• insulation
• insulated
• corrugated
• howto
• installation
• diy

[6969smurfy]

Nice Vid. I waz going to note, make sure your zip ties & insulation wrap are not squished tight! ( It makes hot spots) I saved some money by using 3/4"... seems fine for my usage. Just over 50’ run. I also invested in the Pex crimping tool. Big saving if you’re doing lots of process runs! My Set-Up is 2 room car radiator box heaters, 2 home made side arms for hot tub & hot water recirculation.

[sethea]

@6969smurfy Thanks for the comment. The zip ties are just tight enough to hold it in place, with some indention - but I think their overall surface area is minimal. The pink insulation is as tight as it needed to be to fit in the pipe. I've been thinking it should have been smaller (thinner) insulation so it wasn't very tight at all, but I'm not loosing too much sleep over it. I'm hoping for a low temp drop and I think the fact that I used 8" corrugated (most use 4) and also the wood chips help

[ProfKSE]

Good video. I wouldn't use the batt insulation. It will absorb moisture. Once it gets wet it loses most of it's insulation value. The closed-cell foam pieces were a good idea.

[sidebarr7]

Is it true these outdoor furnace use a lot of wood? why not get a brick lined one and use coal with the wood,It would burn hotter and longer before you have to make a new fire in it.

[MrDan27611]

Hey thanks for the video. I was struggling on how to fix my old boiler pipes. As you can see by my video, you were the inspiration for what we did.

[DaBumb]

@6969smurfy Where was this video last year. I had a heck of a time putting my pex throught a pipe and you make it look soooo easy. Thanks and great job.

[arnoldcustom]

WE install with 1-1/2 foil backed boiler insulation. cut peaces 20" long off the 4' wide roll, so we end up with peaces 4'x20" wrap one wrap around the hot line, then wrap both lines as one until the 20" is used, foil tape the over laps and every 2' then pull into 6" ducted. we do winter installs leaving line on top of ground, no snow melt at all, been doing it that way for over 15 years

[6969smurfy]

@6969smurfy I had more room with ¾” pex so I used 4 to 5 layers news papers over the foam rubber sleeves. Then 2” insulation, cut down rolls to 8” widths. Spiral wrapped aluminum foil, then wrapped in plastic. I did this manufacturing in around 10 ft sections at a time. Making sure everything is as light a fluffy in corrugated tube as possible.

[OmegaMolecule]

Great project!