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I am about to enclose a screen porch for a customer that has an 8″ slab as a floor. The room that this porch will share has a finished floor height of about 5″ higher than the slab. It is about 130 square feet and I’m planning on laying p.t. sleepers down to gain the necessary height to match the oak strip flooring in the adjacent room. The locale is Chicago.
My question is can I install some form of Radiant heat under the subfloor and tie it in to their domestic hot water system ( they plan on adding another 40 gallon tank) or would it be better to go for an eletric under floor heat? Right now the house has forced air nat. gas. Since this room will have 4 large windows the owners are concerned that the wood flooring will be cold in the winter. I’m not looking for a primary heat source in the floor– just a supplement to help keep the wood warm. Thanks in advance for any advice.
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$1700.00 electric or hydronic. Your code is the call. Contact me via email for details regarding wattage/amperage if electric. Hydronic, I supply everything except operational water heater. Electric, I supply the cable, terminal box and floor/air sensing thermostat. You supply the electrician to spark it.
Skip the pressure treated and figure a concrete pour.
The cost of the concrete is on your shoulders.
Schedule the installation of the tube or cable over a two day period and jeffie will help you place and finish.
You call the date.
Anymore questions? you know how to contact me.
Don't belabour the decision, I didn't factor in the time to convince the HO, that is your job, you are in charge, eh? You add on for your time and effort.
Expensive?
You wouldn't believe how much your clients will appreciate you.
Jeff
*I'd encourage you to consider a concrete pour as well. 1/2" PEX on one foot centers (130-150' total) and some tile or vinyl on top will work really nice. If you go sleepers and hardwood, you'll need clip-on aluminium plates on the tubing (or a lot more length of tubing and maybe a higher water temperature). You'll also want to either notch the sleepers from above before you lay down the tubing or lay down the tubing and notch the bottom of the sleepers. You are not going to want to thread 150' of tubing through a 1.5" hole in each sleeper.Heat-wise, it should work fine. You'll be pulling much, much less than the output of the water heater. For a small single loop system, I like using a line-voltage thermostat and running romex back to your utility room. Have a switched (and labeled) outlet for the one or two pumps to plug into.One pump or two, code, etc: My inspector interprets a passage that you can't intermingle you heating fluid with potable water. This dictates a heat exchange (smallest little parallel plate HX with do it for you, $110 is a good price, $225 is what someone might try to charge you). One pump circulates potable on one side of the HX and hte other circulates water or antifreeze on the PEX tubing side. You'll also need a small expansion tank and fitting to charge the system with water and purge it of air. If you are allowed to use potable water (PEX is food grade), you can skip the expansion tank and a number of the fittings. Just blast the line with city water like any newly installed plumbing line.
*Methyl Ethyl Ketone: For either hot water system, you need a mixing valve (hot and cold in, warm mix out) with a 80-110F (or wider) range.Electric install is likely easier. Something like 1,000 watts if your house is tight and well insulated, 3,000 watts if well insulated, 10,000 watts if not well insulated. It will cost more to run than natural gas heated hot water, but it is a small area.For the hardwood floor, if you go that route, use the narrowest strips you can get. This floor will get really, really dry in the winter and, with the heat off in the summer, will get moist again and expand in the summer. -David
*You ought to look at Warmboard.com for in-floor heating. We have a wood-based subfloor panel that is both structural and a hydronic heating emission plate. 4 x 8 T&G at 1 1/8" thick with APA span rating of 24" joist placement.
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I am about to enclose a screen porch for a customer that has an 8" slab as a floor. The room that this porch will share has a finished floor height of about 5" higher than the slab. It is about 130 square feet and I'm planning on laying p.t. sleepers down to gain the necessary height to match the oak strip flooring in the adjacent room. The locale is Chicago.
My question is can I install some form of Radiant heat under the subfloor and tie it in to their domestic hot water system ( they plan on adding another 40 gallon tank) or would it be better to go for an eletric under floor heat? Right now the house has forced air nat. gas. Since this room will have 4 large windows the owners are concerned that the wood flooring will be cold in the winter. I'm not looking for a primary heat source in the floor-- just a supplement to help keep the wood warm. Thanks in advance for any advice.