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October 17, 2007
radient (sp?) heat
our contractor is recommending that we get radient heat (via hot water) throughout the floor in our townhouse that's being gut renovated. anyone have any experience with radient floor heat? we would be putting it under white oak floor for 3 bdrms and tile for a bath... thanks!
Comments
Radiant (under the floor) heat is the best possible type of heat you can install. I have it in two homes outside NY. It uses PEX tubing and a flow of hot water from the boiler. It evenly heats the room and the floors (especially the tile ones) reatian the heat.
You can find a lot of info on this on the web
Posted by: daveinbedstuy at October 17, 2007 7:22 PM
Make sure you use quartersawn wood for the flooring. We are installing radiant heat and have learned that you must use quarter sawn or engineered flooring.
Posted by: PHfamily at October 17, 2007 7:49 PM
we are using mesquite wood (very stable) floor over warmboard subfloor (google it).
Posted by: guest at October 17, 2007 10:03 PM
why do you have to use quarter sawn? can you explain? i've never heard of that before. Is that true if you are using electric radiant heat also?
Posted by: guest at October 17, 2007 10:09 PM
Most species of wood will expand and contract at a rate of (plus or minus) two to one at a tangential to radial length(soft woods more than hard woods). When the wood is heated the moisture content of that wood changes. What this translates to is that a 4" strip of quarter sawn white oak will grow .022" with a 15% change in humidity while a flat sawn piece of the exact same wood will grow .043". This may not seem like much but on a 12' wide room this expansion is enough to make the flat sawn floor buckle. Engineered flooring is man-made material like MDF and is very stable. But any species of wood can be quarter sawn and usually looks better that way.
Here is a wood movement calculator if you care to compare different species of wood:
http://justwoodworking.com/software/wood_move.php
Posted by: southslope at October 18, 2007 12:10 AM
We are in a similar situation: faced with a gut, it seemed a shame not to put in radiant heat. It feels good, is clean, and is very efficient!
We are using this company and laying the PEX ourselves:
We are giving them a floorplan of the house, and they are making these lego pieces, and a plan for laying out the tubing that is efficient, and they are giving it to us along with a manifold that plugs into our water heater for about 3500 per floor. You install it, run the tube, and then put hardiboard on top to act as your thermal mass.
We went with them because we liked the way using this open-air lego-type system creates more insulation (air = insulator), both from sound between floors and heat. And I like that they are thinking about the thermal mass you have to create (there is another company that makes MDF panels that you do not install hardiboard over, but we couldn't figure out how that's as efficient as heating up a cement shape, particularly without tile or some other heat-collector)...
I would do some research before buying flooring, and I would tell whomever you buy wood flooring from that you are putting it over radiant heat. Wood is organic, and it collects and sheds moisture. Heating up moisture makes it expand. If you overheat your boards, and if they are not dimensionally stable, you can get a lot of warping, cupping and checking.
Electric is more for like bathrooms, so I can't imagine what kind of wood you're using being an issue. I can't imagine it being an efficient way to heat your whole house.
Posted by: guest at October 18, 2007 7:07 AM
A gut rehab is the perfect time to install radiant floor heating.
Retro-fits? Not so much.
Posted by: Master Plvmber at October 18, 2007 7:22 AM
Just a note about the dimensional stability of various wood. The dimensional stability of wood has very little to do with the hardness of wood. For example, Brazilian cherry, which is one of the hardest woods is also one of the most unstable. American cherry, on the other hand, which is one of the softer woods is also one of the most stable. Quartersawn is better and also the narrower the wood the better. Engineered floor is the best, but poo pooed on these boards because people think you will eventually sand off the top layer, which is highly unlikely unless you plan on resanding your floors every 5 years.
Posted by: guest at October 18, 2007 10:36 AM
Put simply, quartersawn wood expands up as opposed to out. If wood expands out by enough, the floor will buckle. Quartersawn oak has beautiful grain patterns but is more expensive. Not sure by how much.
Posted by: guest at October 18, 2007 1:06 PM
See link below for #s on Mesquite & other woods
http://www.mesquitefloors.com/hardness&stability.html
Posted by: guest at October 18, 2007 5:00 PM
OP here -- thanks for all of the great advice. we're looking at wide planked white oak, but our contractor has lots of experience w/ radient heat and definitely has opinions on the type of wood we should use. it's nice to have the info you guys gave too. thanks v. much!
Posted by: guest at October 19, 2007 1:08 PM
Have laid pex tubing in newly 1200 sq ft of newly poured basement concrete floor (as per various web site instructions 9") and now am looking for an experienced heating plumber to install and connect either seperate small hot water heater or other heating device. Anyone know of experience plumber(s)for such a task. Master plumber do you know of any in PS area?
Posted by: guest at October 29, 2007 9:46 PM
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