Using both forced air and radiant
Radiant heat is really great and it ‘s ideal for the conversion of our attached garage to a family room. The rest of the house has gas forced air. Anyone have some thoughts on mixing the two in other areas? I’d like to heat the ceramic tile floor of the kitchen with hot water (between the joists) but the living room has thick carpet and in the same space (sort of a great room thing).
I don’t want to buy a big heat source for the family room (600sqft) if expansion isn’t practical or too small a source if I can expand it.
Yes, I know I should get a hvac engineer to look over the place, do the heat loss calculations etc. My question is more along the lines of ‘Can I cost effectively mix the two systems?’ and has anyone had success doing this?
Thanks for sharing your experience and time !
Ted
Overlooking Lake Superior in Duluth, MN
Replies
Goodmorning, radiant will be the way to go if you can. If the system you are using is gas powered hydroair you'll be all set if not you'll need another heat source!! :(
Will I screw up the heating balance of the place by adding relatively small areas of radiant and still using the forced air? The house has only 1 thermostat for the forced air. Will I be burning lots of gas needlessly?
The big question is how do you plan on powering the radiant electric or hydronic. If the radiant is confined to only one area then put just 1 thermostat in that space and it should have no affect on the rest of the home.. <!----><!---->
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I really don't think you'll burn enough more fuel to even be worried about, given the superior comfort of a warm floor.
Kind of hard to explain, but warm feet give you a feeling of security, or well-being. Once you have that feeling, you don't seem to notice the air temperature as much. I would imagine that you may well run your air temperature LOWER if you have strategically placed warm floors.
Hard to believe, but I was quite comfortable this morning in sweat suit, bare feet, with an air temperture of 62*F. In the evenings we crank up the wood stove to supplement, but could do as well with raising the temp of the water circulatingh through the floor.