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We are installing in-floor heat in our 3200 ft. home. Basement and 1st floor will have in-floor, 2nd floor will have baseboard. The installer has recommended a number of different zones. I was wondering how you determine the zones — by area? By floor covering? How many zones do you usually do?
Dan
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Sometimes determined by flow-rate of water through tubes based on the size of the tubes, capacity of manifold, length of tube runs, circulating pump specs and heat-loss calculations for the space. Affected also by placement of thermostats, i.e., a first floor thermostat should probably not be tied to a basement loop, so the basement would need to be part of a different zone. We have 5 zones (five manifolds and pumps and thermostats) covering about 35 loops, 6500 ft of tube, 3 floors, 6000 sq ft, if that helps.
*You could break zones down into lifestyle, room orientation, and for RFH, "practical design."Lifestyle: Rooms hardly ever used (possibly closed off from rest of house, seasonal use, etc) may want to be zoned separately from rooms you always use, kitchen, etc. Also, to have the thermostat for the entire first floor in the kitchen (heat producing room) may result in a warm kitchen from cooking, but the other rooms may be cold as a result of the thermo never requesting heat. In the summer, the kitchen would demand extra cooling to releave heat gain, once again possibly causing the remainder of the first floor to get too much A/C.Orientation: North vs southern exposure, for instance. Similar to above kitchen example. If room with lots of southern glazing is on the same loop as a room on the northern side of your house, this time with the thermosat in the northern room, the northern room will be requesting heat, which will also heat the southern room (heat in addition to solar heat gain). Too hot?For "practical design," it sort of all depends...PEX layout and loop length will determine the number of loops you have. You'll have a certain number of loops per manifold. Zones can be broken down into individual loops, loop groupings, or individual manifolds.I suppose floor covering could be a factor in RFH. Low-"R" floor coverings could use lower operating temps than hi-"R" floors, for instance.All told, figure out which rooms will have equivalent heat/cooling loads and consider zoning them together.
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We are installing in-floor heat in our 3200 ft. home. Basement and 1st floor will have in-floor, 2nd floor will have baseboard. The installer has recommended a number of different zones. I was wondering how you determine the zones -- by area? By floor covering? How many zones do you usually do?
Dan