Shelly, Idaho-based Ramrk Plumbing Inc. (pronounced “Ray-Mark”) has served the western Wyoming/eastern Idaho region since 1967. The company entered the hydronics market in 1982 and that soon led to radiant heat work.
    Ramrk president Mark Goyen ensures the firm is quick to investigate emerging technology; Ramrk was one of the area’s first to adopt the manifold concept for water distribution. Today, the company installs miles of PEX tubing each summer and makes it their business to stay apprised of the newest technology and techniques available.
    Goyen said the company’s workload percentage is split about 80 percent residential and 20 percent commercial work. Of that, about 30 percent of the company’s work is hydronics. The company does between six and eight custom homes (ranging in size between 8,000- and 26,000 square feet) and as many as 150 new spec homes each year.  

Big Project

Ramrk Plumbing Inc.’s president Mark Goyen examines mechanical plans for the 8,500- square foot Jackson Hole, Wyo., home recently constructed by Paintbrush Properties. Grundfos photos by Steve Jones.

A recent project is an 8,500 square foot, single-level home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, located within the boundaries of the Jackson Hole Tennis and Golf Club property. The custom home by Paintbrush Properties for the James and Carol Linton Family has 17 radiant zones powered by two wall-hung, 158 MBTU/H boilers.
    There are also four hi-temperature zones serving hydro-air fan coils; the duct work for these also avails air conditioning during the summer months. There are also four snowmelt zones serving 1,800 square feet of outside walkways and driveway pavers on sand. A trio of whirlpool baths is among the needs also served by the mechanical system that includes a 120-gallon indirect water heater.
    The builder was sufficiently impressed with their work on this home  that he now has them do the plumbing work on Paintbrush Properties’ other projects as well.
    “We also used proportional integral derivative logic controls and outdoor reset,” Goyen said. A “PID controller,” briefly, is a “smart” control loop feedback mechanism commonly used in industrial-type control systems.
    A PID controller attempts to correct the error between a measured process variable (such as temperature) and a desired setpoint by calculating and then outputting a corrective action that can adjust the process accordingly.
    The PID controller uses three different parameters in the calculations it uses to control a process—Proportional value, Integral value and the Derivative value. The Proportional value determines the reaction to the current error, the Integral value determines the reaction based on the sum of recent errors and the Derivative value determines the reaction to the rate at which the error has been changing.
    The weighted sum of these three actions is used to adjust the process via a control element such as the position of a control valve or the power supply of a heating element.
    “This technology combines with outdoor reset and injection mixing to give us precise control throughout the house,” Goyen said. “It even anticipates the drop in outside temperatures. It’s especially important when outdoor temperatures can swing as much as 60- or 70 degrees Fahrenheit during a 24-hour period. Here in the mountains, anything’s possible, and the rigors of Teton weather patterns test the merit of the best-designed system, and the toughest products on the market.”
    And it just so happens that Wyoming’s wild weather—and Goyen’s desire not to trudge through snow drifts in the middle of the night to battle no-heat calls—is one of the key reasons for his insistence the company’s systems “circulate with certainty.”
    “We’re a big fan of pumping versus telestats and zone valves because we’ve encountered problems controlling zone flow without the use of dedicated circulators,” Goyen said. “For 25 years or so we’ve relied steadily on Grundfos pumps—some of their larger VersaFlos, but mostly the smaller, three-speed SuperBrutes. We buy them by the [pallet] these days. 
    “I calculate heat loss, flow rate, and pressure drop for each zone,” Goyen said. “I use this information and the manufacturer’s pump curve to select the proper pump for each zone. Years ago, before we locked in on the three-speed pumps, we might have had three or four different pump models on one job, all selected to match the needs that we’d determined. With multi-speed pumps, we can use one pump and select the speed to match the flow and head that we want.” 
    The use of multi-speed pumps also helps Ramrk avoid over-sizing the circulation pumps. Goyen said a “one-size-fits-all” approach to circulation rarely works and isn’t electrically efficient, either. 
    “That’s an important advantage for us,” Goyen said. “We’re doing a few large systems now where the multi-speed circulator pumps have given us the ability to balance water flow to each manifold no matter how many loops are on it. On one of the jobs, we have some manifolds with up to nine loops, and one manifold with only two loops. With multi-speed pumps, we can deliver as much water as we need to each manifold.” 
    Ramrk’s choice of circulators also permits downstream adjustments, changes, and retrofits in stride. “I can recall a variety of situations where multi-speed pumps made our day,” Goyen said. “One customer needed more heat in a great room, and another was getting hot spots on a kitchen floor. In each case, we simply adjusted the speed of the pump and the problem disappeared.”
    Ramrk also prefers to prefabricate its own hydronic panels, whether they’re pump stations or larger primary/secondary panels with controls.
    “We like to do this work at our shop where we stock all of our materials,” said Goyen. “This is very convenient when the job is miles away from a supply house and you need a fitting to continue. We can place the panels flat on a workbench and attach struts and clamps in an orderly fashion instead of trying to hang everything a piece at a time.”
    This also makes efficient use of the company’s time on job sites where space can be at a premium when other contractors are present. By pre-fabbing as much as possible, Goyen said Ramrk can do better work and spend less time actually on the job site, a nice luxury in the winter when it’s nasty cold outside.
    “We also do a lot of remote jobs,” Goyen added. “Like the big, custom log home 46 miles from the nearest wholesaler. There’s another reason why we’ve standardized on the Grundfos SuperBrutes. The three-pump line and the three-speeds they offer replace dozens of other pumps we had at one time thought necessary to carry on the trucks. Life is a lot simpler now.”

A Taste of Job Site Life

Zack Lake and Jeremy Lesig from Ramrk Plumbing flank Rachel Marie, a Pennsylvania student interested in a mechanical contracting career. Grundfos photos by Steve Jones.

While the Ramrk crew was at work on the home near Jackson, a visitor from Pennsylvania spent a day on the job with them. A student who’s considering a career in mechanical contracting, Rachel Marie was impressed with the firm’s efficiency at the job site. “Shortly after Mr. Goyen introduced me to the guys on the crew, he showed me the mechanical blueprints for the job,” she said. “I’m a visually-oriented person, and this was very helpful because I could see how all of the systems came together as part of the home. The plumbing and radiant heat layout was shown, the HVAC system was visible and he pointed out how, in the mechanical area, everything came together. It was all so orderly and well planned. I’d never before imagined how--in the walls, floors and ceilings--all of these systems could accomplish what was expected of them.”      
    Marie then toured the entire job site. She entered the crawl space below the home where many remote, prefabricated circulator panels were being installed; tracing a line on the blueprint to see where tubing would carry return flow to the wall-hung, modulating-condensing boiler.       
    The best part of the day for Marie was the hands-on experience she received when they gave her a propane torch to sweat some copper tubing, and a pneumatic stapler where she participated in the laying-out of a radiant loop in the home’s living room. “It was an exciting day for me,” she said. “It was amazing for me to experience doing the work and also to understand the plan for all of it. Before this trip, I only vaguely understood the many parts and tasks needed to bring it all together. But my visit to the Ramrk job site--because of how they showed it to me the way they explained it--made things so much sharper and clear. I came away with the impression that I could do this.”