Hope everybody is having a good evening
I am planning on going with Radiant heating for my entire house. the house is 1650sqft, i will be using a lot of hardwood, some tile in the foyer and carpet in the bedrooms.
i should note that i live in Alberta about 40 miles south of edmonton. the house has several windows to the south.
I looked at using warmboard, but since i can not get a hold of them and can not find a local distributer i have opted to find another option (also heard some prices). I was wondering if i strip some 3/4 ply and screw that to the subfloor put a layer of aluminum (if i can find any) and then press in my tubing with a layer of tile cement, if this would work to heat my main floor.
i will be using a air exchanger to circulate and bring in new air for the house, and the radiant downstairs and the garage will be in my concrete floor.
Are there any problems with this? any questions or concerns are definatly welcome from this radiant greenhorn.
Thank you
Replies
Do-it-yourself Warmboard equivalent runs the risk of anywhere you don't get the alum completely secured, when you walk over the finished flooring you'll hear the noise it bending, and possibly of it expanding/contracting as heat's applied and removed.
I'm in agreement with Cloud.
Commercially available aluminum has been put through the thermal wringer, meaning that it's been designed the way it has been designed to minimize thermaly-induced noise.
With a well-built house and good insulation under each floor, and by minimizing the R-value of the carpet and pad, you can get good thermal performance by just using PEX and ply sleepers on top of the subfloor. No Al.
If your heating loads dictate, you can use commercially available AL plates on top of the subfloor and around the perimeter, or exterior walls (near glazing) of rooms with higher heating loads to up the BTUs a bit. Ex: A north-facing exterior wall with lots of glass.
With a low-mass system as you're describing, you'll get fairly quick thermal response times, but you won't enjoy the benefit (and sometimes downside) of the thermal loading that a slab can provide.
Our houses and climates sound similar. In addition to Jim and Mongo's thoughts,
Adding a water-to-air heat exchanger in the HRV return means you won't get 45F air falling on your toes when it is -10F outside. It can be as simple as some 3/4 copper fin tube run in the duct work. It also is immediate response and that helps your system respond better. You are blowing the air around anyway, might as well heat it when your house needs the heat and let it be cool when the house doesn't need the heat.
Your tiled area will put out much more heat per square foot than the carpet or wood. Consider increasing the tiled area for high BTU/hour. Be careful mixing a tiled room and a carpeted one in the same zone because they will behave differently.
My home-made Al fins don't make any noise, but I didn't sandwich them between plywood.