Retrofit radiant heat under wood floors
I need help designing a radiant/hydronic (?) floor heating system for a 1200 sq ft 1 story bungalow (95 yrs old) on Long Island, mediocre insulation, 50% basement/50% accessible crawl space. 2.25″ oak floors some on 1×6 pine some directly on joists, no carpet, a couple area rugs (15% of total floor), several built-ins against outside walls as well as a relatively cold galley kitchen. The current system is a noisy forced hot air with leaky ducts congesting a low basement ceiling, which will eventually be finished. I have 20 yrs construction experience including plumbing & baseboard heat but no experience in installing radiant under existing wood floors. Is there a comprehensive book I can get? I have questions about: 1) Heat source 2) Tubing size, length, and loop config. 3) Proportioning valves/manifolds 4) System sizing 5) Running, hanging, reflecting & insulating Pex tubing 6) Code considerations. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, T-
Edited 6/27/2004 9:49 pm ET by Terence5
Replies
i installed a radiant system in our new home in southern new jersey using heatway products. the tubing was stapled under the 3/4" df plywood subfloor in very specific
patterns. left a 2" air space w/ foil backed r-22 insulation below between joists. finished floor was 2 1/4 " quarter sawn white oak stapled directly to fir subfloor. heating season shrinks floor acceptably. we open the windows in the spring and
the body of water one block from our home refered to as the atlantic ocean i assume is responsible for eliminating all gaps between floor boards in 48 short hours! amazing! used an awesome w.mc. gv3 gold boiler. lots of thought in the layout,
used a great plumber, ran all the tubing myself (builder), would never own aother
home without radiant floor heating. call bridgeton plumbing supply in bridgeton. n.j..
ask form dave.
Thanks for the help Tom. Is the Wiel McLain boiler tankless? How many BTUs is it? How many sq ft is your house & is it tight? Was the system installed in new construction & is the oak floor new?
its a gold gv 3 70,000 btu/hr boiler w/ an indirect fired water heater. all new
construction, 2x6 r-21 walls super tight all around. the oak floors are quatersawn
which i would strongly reccomend to reduce shrinkage during heating season. our
home is about 2400 sf. tom.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=Earthstar+%2B+radiant+heat&btnG=Google+Search
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Piffin ...What do you think of the electric radiant heating system as a primary/secondary source in a 1200sq ' cabin?
Sounds good to me, but wonder what the monthly bill would be between that and baseboard?............
most banks and insurance companies require a system other than wood only to approve financing.
EWlectric baseboard heat is cheap to install but expensive to run. and people are basically lazy enough that most do not rely on the wood heat sao the expense of the elec BB means that eventuallyu, tjhey rip it out and send it to the dump
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For radiant, this is THE book to get. Siegenthaler rocks.
http://www.hydronicpros.com/Publications/MHH2/MHH2.htm
Thanks for the tip. I couldn't get it at the library but saw it at the book store the other day for $100. It looked like the difinitve authority on water heat. I'll try to get it used online. T-
Edited 6/28/2004 10:19 pm ET by Terence5
You should be able to get it for closer to $75 net. It's pretty new, so there will not be many on the used market yet. Even comes with nifty software.
Try:
http://www3.addall.com/New/submitNew.cgi?query=0-7668-1637-0&type=ISBN&location=10000&state=MA&dispCurr=USD
Try hanging out here from time to time. You'll learn alot.
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