Ot, heating question

JayinNY · Jan 22, 2015

I have hot water baseboard in my house, I'm thinking about
putting radiant heat in on the first floor does anyone on here
have that? and how do you like it ? is it really better than the
baseboard ? Also when I put the pexs pipe under the flooring
since the basements heated do u think I need to insulate the
pipe

Bob · Jan 22, 2015

BT,DT, and it's SWELL, but unless you REALLY crave a warm floor, it probably won't make much difference in room temperature, overall comfort, or your heating bill.

Pretty nice in the shower area, or in the bedroom when the hydraulic alarm goes off in the middle of a cold night, though!

FBH44 · Jan 23, 2015

Never did like the in-the-floor heat, I never could get away from it, never did get used to the hot soles of my feet. Kept my feet up on the coffee table.

atlarge54 · Jan 23, 2015

I have it and would hate to be without it. I don't know if I'd tear up an existing baseboard system to do it though.

johnlobb · Jan 23, 2015

If you're really interested, you can go to the site heatinghelp.com and get Dan Holohans book about radiant heat. It is written for the layman and it will keep you from making any mistakes. Radiant heat usually saves from 25-50% on your heating bill and is the most comfortable heat going. The colder your climate, the better. If your feet are too hot, the system was designed wrong, the surface temp should be around 85 degrees for optimal use, not uncomfortable at all.

Cliff Nelson · Jan 23, 2015

We have it built in to our new house with gyp crete on top of the sub floor. In our old house we added it under the floor. If you add under the floor, use the aluminum pieces that snap over the tube for heat transfer. We tried some without and went back and added them because we couldn't transfer the heat fast enough. Insulating under the tubes between the floor joists is recommended as it keeps the heat going up and not heating the basement ceiling. We had an unheated basement in the old house but was 80 degrees until we insulated under the tubes. We love the heat and with the new house having the heat mass in the floor it recovers faster after opening a door in cold weather. The surface temp should be within a couple degrees of room temp so you should noe get hot feet.

showcrop · Jan 23, 2015

Some friends put it in the house that they built about 15 years ago. I guess they mainly like it but she complains about the delayed response. I guess you would need to have a programmable T'stat set to raise or lower about four hours in advance. She said also that on cold sunny mid winter days. It comes up to temp in the morning, then the sun coming in the south facing windows will raise the temp and the in floor radiant will keep raising the temp well after it is shut down by the T'stat, so that it gets too hot. I suppose that you could learn to set the T'stat back when you know that it is supposed to be sunny.

Dan in Ohio · Jan 23, 2015

Jay,

I have hot water heat under the floors in my home that have tile floors, kitchen and master bath. The contractor used fiber glass batts on the floor joist in the kitchen and a bubble rap type insulation in the bath, both were over unheated crawl space. The bath area is more difficult to access, maybe why they used bubble rap. Would never have tile floors without the under floor heat. Baseboard heaters were replace with forced air system to accommodate AC thirty years ago.

Outdoor wood burner supplies most of the hot water, oil boiler takes over when away for more than a few days, heat pump for AC and heat in late spring or early fall.

Ot, heating question

JayinNY

Well-known Member

Bob

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FBH44

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atlarge54

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johnlobb

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Cliff Nelson

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showcrop

Well-known Member

Dan in Ohio

Well-known Member

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