I’m considering the winterizing of a one-story cinder-block cottage with a concrete slab floor. The place now is unheated and uninsulated. I was considering radiant heating installed over the slab, but my local contractor says that’s not possible. Regardless of the heating system, we’d still have the problem of insulation.
Does anyone have any suggestions and guidance?
Replies
Ask your contractor why thousands of other projects have used radiant heat the way you've described. I've seen it done lots of times. Usually over gravel rather than concrete but that shouldn't make any difference. You could do gas or electric. electric you could actually put right underneath tiles or a subfloor. I think you should be able to do this. Any reason in particular why you'd use this method for a cottage? Response time is kind of slow, so going up for the weekend you could potentially spend the first day freezing. Unless you keep it runing all the time. A woodstove would be a decent option.
If you have the height I would install 2" extruded polystyrene foam on the existing concrete floor then pour a 3 or 4" slab on top of that.