Have I mentioned that I hate plumbing?... Let me reiterate the fact... I Hate Plumbing!!
Now, its not that I can't sweat a joint with the best of them, its something more complex... Plumbing while seeming simple as in connect the pipes and the water flows, is not quite so... You have to consider flow rates, pressure drop across fittings, pressure loss to head, pump capacity, temperature, pressure, mounting, solder and flux type, electronic controls, and any number of other things I can't recall at the moment... Most of this crap is general plumbing stuff, but some is just significant to hydronic heat, which is my current headache...
Of course, it only makes it worse that I'm short some of the paperwork from my boiler, and I didn't write down the pertinent temp and pressure info when it was running, but that can be overcome... Then I've complicated it further by deciding on 3 zones rather than the single zone it was... That means you get dropped in to the world of zone valves, or circulators. (I picked valves since the circulator was already big enough to handle the full load) So I spent 4 hours today translating the specifications of zone valves in to something I could understand... Sadly the valve manufacturers print their paperwork for the benefit of people that work with their gear all the time, so its full of engineering specifications, but no explanations of what they relate to... For example they all have a Cv rating on each valve... I'd never heard of such a thing, but based on the context, it had to do with the flow capacity of the valve... Turns out it stands for Characteristics of Valve, which is still meaningless... However, on further investigation, it is the product of an equation that takes in to consideration the specific gravity of the fluid, the flow rate, and the desired pressure drop across the valve... Do I ever want to need that formula again?... Hopefully not...
At any rate, after giving myself a splitting headache getting the parts specifications together, and the quantity of fittings, I finally have the list of things I need to make it all go together... Unfortunately, I can't get my dad down here to help me until next week... So I guess once I have all the parts here, I can go on to something else... Probably landscape work that has been waiting until I got the right rocks... Fortunately, the landscaper I know turned up the better part of a pallet of what I need late last week... At least I know what I'm getting in to with dirt work and rock... I imagine it will actually be refreshing after the aneurism of plumbing...