Would you share any insights/suggestions you have on manifold design and suppliers?
I designed and laid in all the water lines as home runs. There are no junctions of any sort. For a crib this small, this was an easy decision and common practice for pex. All the runs are 1/2" and deliver plenty of water to each fixture. The copper manifolds are 1" with 1" copper sweat fittings at the inbound end. I picked up all the Pex stuff (including tubing) and some other valves and related plumbing stuff from a popular Ebay vendor. Send me a PM and I'll give you the specific name, but shop Ebay and you will see a couple of major players on there. They carry name brands, so no worries with quality.
All the supply lines are meticulously set (yeah, I know....SURPRISE!!) to run at a constant downward slope back to the manifold. This allows me to drain backwards by opening the faucets and I can winterize in seconds. Toilets work the same way, except I have to scoop out a few cups of water at the very bottom of the tank and throw in a couple of splashes of pink stuff. Same thing with the trap in the bowl. We used this setup all last winter and it worked great. We turned off the the heat when we leave, drain the water supply system (takes about 10 mins of fuss), and done. I don't want to pay for the energy to heat thru the time that we are not there. I incorporated extra valves to allow shutting off the main feed going into the manifold matrix and allowing me to drain back what was left up above into a 5 gal bucket.
This is a pic looking up to the small bundle of snakes. I used a piece of 1 x 4 PVC board to create the 2 guides that organize the snakes so they enter the manifold squarely and securely.
The mechanical room is super-insulated and tight and is the only room that remains heated all winter. I have 2 small 24" elec baseboard heaters in there, each with their own thermostat and one set a few degrees higher than the other. This creates a quasi-redundent heating backup.
