Hello All,
I plan to start building a new home next year and I would like feedback radiant heating. For house in the Kentucky/Ohio area… is this a good choice for heating a home? What are the cons to using radiant heating?
thanks
Discussion Forum
Discussion Forum
Up Next
Video Shorts
Featured Story
Skim-coating with joint compound covers texture, renews old drywall and plaster, and leaves smooth surfaces ready to paint.
Featured Video
Highlights
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Replies
I've had it for 18 yrs.
Passive solar, super insulated and HW heat in the concrete 1st. floor (ceramic). Under ply/ceramic in the second floor baths. A 4' and 5' pc of salvaged HW basebd in the two remote bedrooms.
Downstairs is pretty open, with complete open to second floor in the LR.
This is NW Oh.
Upside, even in the open area, floors warm-body warm, no big temp change in vaulted area.
Ceramic-no problem with spills etc-hard on feet-dropped glass doesn't bounce.
Couple hour response-no quick-on, "honey I'm chilly".
With the passive solar, we do our own monitoring of what the weather (sun/temp) will be so we keep from turning on the floor until just b/4 the winter season and watch those early spring sunny days with 30's temps-no floor heat needed.
We supplement the floor heat with a masonry heater-again radiant but more localized in the "great room" but heats the entire house in any weather. Don't usually turn the floor on till late november.
Downside-no ducts to run AC through. Finally bought a window AC unit and put it in one of the upstairs windows. Damn if it doesn't cool the whole house. Located it in the great room 2nd floor window.
Again, no quick response could be a downside. New controls/sensors that monitor the outdoor temps help you "ignore" keeping track of the weather report.
Pretty costly to install, but with our surprising gas usage-payback is good but comfort is immediate. Other houses of comparable size (and normal building practices) have 300.00 mo gas bill in winter. Here-160.00 was the highest (less masonry heater on and no sun) Usual bill-100.00 Of course you need to adjust the dollars against actual gas usage-price varies per location.
A well insulated, properly sited home will produce benefits to any heating system. Passive solar is just common sense. Large overhangs to shade in summer is a plus. Layout of rooms and zones make radiant pretty darn comfortable.
A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
In that area I would look into a heat pump--aren't winters fairly mild there? You can get heating or cooling from a heat pump. I once had the brilliant idea of running chilled water through a radiant hyronic floor system, to cool the house in summer, but a HVAC guy told me you'd get condensation on the floor in summer and it'd be a mess. (I also had the brilliant idea for a heat pump that would get it's heat from a tank of water heated by the sun--didn't get any comments on that idea. This was for a plan for a house in South Carolina--a competition to make a Habitat House with more features than the usual ones.)
Thanks .....winters can be pretty cold sometimes. It does drop to below 0 sometimes.
I'll start doing more research on a heat pump.
Look into geothermal heat pump.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
The bad thing about a heat pump in cold climates is that at below freezing, it cannot draw out any heat (if it's using the outside air as its heat source) and it goes to electric resistance heating. Where I live, electric is expensive. Maybe not where you live. The suggestion to go with a geothermal source for the heat is a good one--you can drill a well and use that water as your heat source.
That's where I got the idea to augment the water with a little passive solar heat (in my Habitat design (using a water to air heat pump)) and I had several tanks of water in a green house attached to the entire south side of the house with the storage tank (using thermosyphon) in an attic above. I may have gotten too complicated because I had the floors made out of concrete blocks lying on their sides so air flowed through their cores and they too picked up heat from the floor of the green house. I had a garage door on a heat sensor switch that opened between green house and house when the temp was high enough. Had some other stuff too that I don't remember now. Most of it was automated though, so the homeowner didn't have to mess with opening shutters, truning on pumps, etc..
dakar,
In floor radiant heat is the best, most efficent way to heat a home, bar none.. The reason it is is because the human body keeps it's heart a long way from our feet and it's funny. If our feet are warm, the rest of us feels comforatable.. heated floors make your feet warm at a lower temp then the rest of you body really wants so you can turn the temp down and enjoy energy savings while still being comfortable..
Forced hot air means hot air enters the room and since heat rises and cold settles cold air drops to the floor while all the hot air is in the ceiling area. Feet wind up cold unless a massive amount of heat is pumped in.
A couple of points.. there are do-it-yourself companies out there Like radiantec willing to help you design and install a system if you'd like it.. the potential savings are massive and the work is real basic stuff..
A great system is only part of the equation though.. normal construction, that is what's called stick building where 2x4's or 2x6's are used is terribly energy inefficent.. Especially if Fiberglass is used. At best the walls will only achieve 80% of the insulation rating because the studs that are every 16 inches will act as a thermal bridge. in many places where studs are doubled and tripled together for structural reasons that area has virtually no insulational value at all.
There are two common methods used to eliminate the thermal briding issue.. The first is SIP's or structural insulation panels and the second is ICF's insulated Concrete forms (or both can be used) there are other options available.
Price wise it depends on where you are as to what these alternatives cost.. I did them myself and found that for me they were cheaper.. If you have a contractor familar with them the house can be built for around the same cost up to about a 10% premium. Market forces determine that more so than the cost of materials.
In case you are wonder about potential energy savings, my house used to cost $500 a month during Jan& Dec. heating season. using the same recycled furnace in a house twice as big my ICF /SIP house now costs $125 a month during the same period. Once I have my in floor radiant system up and working I expect to drop significantly from that. I save nearly $1000 a year in heating bills with SIP's and ICF's
In fact while I live here in Minnesota and our winters get 40 below sometimes, I will be able to heat my whole 5500 sq.ft. house with an electric water heater.. (instead of a boiler) real potential savings using a water heater instead of a boiler. water heaters operate at the lower temps needed for in floor radiant heat, normal boilers require cooling water to keep from overheating the tubing. heating water up and then cooling it down isn't terribly energy efficent..
Finally the insulational value of this works not only during the winter but during the summer as well.. This summer I had A/C on only 4 days inspite of a prolonged heat wave in the 90's My house is always between 10 to 15 degrees cooler in the summer and 10 to 15 degrees warmer in the winter! Between A/C and heating energy costs I probaly save well in excess of $1200 dollars a year!
Ask and I'll share my experiance with you and even offer you a way to save greatly on the cost of building your place..
IMHO, if you're starting from scratch, radiant is the ONLY way to heat. But, if you want/need A/C, you'll need to have a separate system for that.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
A properly designed and installed radiant heating system is not just the most efficient way to heat a home, it will provide a level of comfort that cannot be matched by any other type of heating. Beware of internet DIY companies. They are not all the same and more than a few sell off-brand tubing that, in some cases, is unrated.
Avoid what's commonly called "open systems" where your potable (drinking water) will be mixed with hydronic water. Here's an article that explains why: http://www.healthyheating.com/tools/Dave%20Yates%20H20%20vs%20Boiler.pdf
If you're interested in heat pumps that will provide adequate heating in low outdoor air temperatures without the need for electric resistance back-up heat, check out the Fujitsu line of Inverter heat pumps. Their efficiencies rival Ground Source Heat Pump systems without the need to dig up the site for a geo-field. No need for ductwork where dust, animal dander and germs can thrive and you'll save $$$ by not having to heat/cool an entire home or by cycling on/off equipment with a ducted zoning system where the equipment won't modulate to match the actual load. http://www.fujitsugeneral.com/multi.htm
We have a timber-framed cape (39' x 32' w/ 20' x 17' ELL) located in central NH that we moved into Dec '04. Our timber-framer/ GC highly recommended radiant so we had that installed on the first floor and the basement slab. (HW baseboard upstairs; my shop is downstairs and it's comfortable ~ 60deg.)
Having lived in forced air & baseboard heated places, radiant is very nice - if done right. Our GC installed the tubing using a computer program by Wirsbo (sp?). The layout considers zones and max. runs before the warm water loses effectiveness. The main floor uses a sand-mix slab that distributes the heat well. (we have "staple-up" in a bath and notice the reduced transfer efficiency.
Our furnace was made by Buderus, who specializes in radiant applications. The hot water (Superstore tank) is provided off the boiler. That is one feature I would NOT do again. i.e. the boiler activates during non-heating seasons just to heat water - we may yet add an "on-demand" HW heater.
We had visited a house that radiant on the 2nd floor, but that seemed "over the top".