2-6-10
 
 
Starting a tubing run is a little difficult. Starting at the utility room, one end is fished through the first hole of each joist, which are in a straight line and easy to pull through, before coming to the RPSL. The entire 300' roll is pulled through these first holes until there is just enough of the end left in the utility room for connecting to the manifold.
Then the tubing gets fished through the joist on one side of the RPSL, who's hole is offset to get the tubing around the pole, then through the joist on the other side of the RPSL. The entire roll we're working with is pulled through each time to make fishing the tubing around the the RPSL easier. After that, it's back to a straight line of holes again.
     
 
Because of the number of holes that need to be drilled through these joists, they're spaced out along the center of the joists. Jeff drilled four holes in each joist for now. The first two are the send and return for the first loop in the main 1st floor area, and the next two are for the second loop.

Once the far joist bay was reached, running the tubing full length from the back of the house to the front was easy. Before long, the tubing was laying loose, ready to be snapped into the aluminum tracking. Notice the tubing only filled two bays. That's all we can get out of a 300' roll. A third bay would have come up short.

     
 
After fooling around with undersized auger bits and hole saws that work OK, but cut awfully slow, Jeff went out and bought a forstner bit, which chews right through the joists and makes nice clean holes.
The tracking is installed in the first bay, and the tubing snapped in. The second bay is almost finished. This shot is looking toward the front wall.
     
Turned around, looking toward the back wall.
Finished!
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