I am replacing the flooring in my kitchen and dining room with 3/4 hardwood. I would like to install hot water radiant heat in these floors. The house has 4 hot water loops with the main loop starting in the dining room, going to the kitchen, living room then the hallway. As the basement below is completely finished with no access to the above to run a new line, is there a way that the radiant heat loop can be tied into the existing loop without restricting the flow to the rest of the loop?
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Sounds like you might be in for at least 2 challenges:
>If you plan to run the tubing in a sleeper sandwich, you're going to have a floor build up of 3/4" to 1 1/2". Can your door ways and entrances take that?
>Radiant floor requires much lower water temperatures than what you are probably currently running with your boiler/hot water setup (fin tubes or radiators?) So you will need a special valve to mix cooler, incoming fluid with the supply fluid so you don't over-heat the floor (and make your feet sweat ). They say maximum floor temp should be 80 - 85 degrees, requiriing supply temps in the 110 - 120 degree range.
I may have made some incorrect assumptions here, and there are pros on this BB who will certainly chime in as well.
Good luck anyway...
"As the basement below is completely finished with no access to the above to run a new line, is there a way that the radiant heat loop can be tied into the existing loop without restricting the flow to the rest of the loop?"
That's 2 totally different questions.
1) You can run tubing under the finish floor. There are a number of ways to do this. Look here for more info on options: http://tinyurl.com/2fep4
2) In terms of tying into existing loops, maybe for a very small space, but for a room of any significance it would be difficult to avoid supply conflicts without home-running a new low temp zone back to the boiler. This sort of thing is more complex than it appears.