Radiant floors
Has anyone installed radiant floors for heating an entire home? Do they actually save $ on your energy bill and work well? Can you install and still preserve your existing wood floors? Any recommendations?
Has anyone installed radiant floors for heating an entire home? Do they actually save $ on your energy bill and work well? Can you install and still preserve your existing wood floors? Any recommendations?
Thanks for the info. I’m reading here, I realized, so I’m educated when I do buy a house and do that reno. (I’m realizing I really want to do my own reno next time, not buy someone else’s, as I did when I bought my apartment. Then, as first-time buyer, hadn’t the money or time to do my own.)
I think its not so prevalent within NYC because there aren’t that many HVAC guys that run into the demand for it. In the suburbs throughout the country there is a lot more new construction and it gets spec’d in to the new construction with a much higher frequency. Hence the HVAC guys out there have become a lot more familiar with it. if you ever watch This Old House, they use it regularly.
I have it in a house in PA and love it. It’s under wide plank antique pine floors. They are very rustic so any shrinkage is not noticeable.
1:37 here.
It cost a lot. About 11K for all the materials, engineering by the florheat people and a very schmancy manifold. Another 1K to get a plumber to hook up manifold. Did all the labor laying PEX etc. myself.
Thanks, 12:59, and 1:37. I had always heard that radiators are better in this climate, that radiant heat is better in more temperate ones. Guess that is wrong. May have something to do with the attached rowhouses keeping in the heat better, as 1:37 notes – but that’s what we have here (mostly).
I’m wondering why more people don’t install it, then, when they do gut or almost-gut renovations. Is it just a matter of cost? Is it terribly expensive to install?
It’s 12:59 here again. We live in a 100-year-old brick house which was recently totally rebuilt except for the exterior walls, so we have up to date, blown in foam insulation. Ceiling height on ‘parlor’ floor is high but the other floors have standard 9 foot or so high ceilings. One or two rooms are large, the rest are “regular’ or small size. It really doesn;t make a difference if you understand how radiant heating works — again, floors are never hot to the touch. Just barely warm at most. The large rooms have a large amount of floor space, obviously, from which the heat rises, so there is more heat coming into those rooms than into the small rooms (obviously again). They all seem to be evenly heated. If it gets cooler toward the ceiling is hard to tell, since none of us are 9 feet tall. I guess that’s one of the implicit questions in the above post, if the heat dissipates as it rises. Can’t really tell. Never felt warm by our calves and cool by our heads or anything. It just feels even and comfortable. Some of us walk around in bare feet and others in socks. I wear flip flops (has nothing to do with temp of the floor). No one has ever complained no matter what they are wearing — or not — on their tootsies. As a test, on this cool day when we don’t have heat on (I think) I just took my flip flop off and felt the porcelain floor. It is slightly cooler than my skin. One last thing — my favorite thing about this is that the house is warm even in the vestibule, as soon as you step into the house. When we had radiators it was cold by the front door and the heat felt much more uneven.
Sorry, I’m 1:37. I wrote that crack about ignorant comments when there were only a few disparaging comments on the topic. 🙂
Once again, there are ignorant comments on Brownstoner.
I have radiant heat over wood floors in NYC, and it works great! Radiators are drying and work too hard in one place and not enough in the other–gross.
My warm floors are not overbearing, make no noise and push no air around, are totally comfortable for walking around barefoot, and are definitely more efficient.
Caveats are many:
1. You need to use certain kinds of wood because wood does expand and contract. Thin planks are better than thick ones. Quartersawn is better than flat sawn. Dimensionally stable species are better. Talk to your flooring distributor about what kinds of wood are going to be good with radiant heat. I would NOT use my original wood floor, which is probably pine and not dimensionally stable. Engineered wood floors work great. This is what we did in our rental unit, where we needed something less expensive and stress-free.
2. You can install radiant heat from beneath, in the joists, but it’s MUCH easier to put it on top of a subfloor. I used a system that I think is probably more efficient than the typical routed plywood route called Easyflor. It’s basically a plastic grid that you put hardeeboard on top of. The hardiboard provides thermal mass (crucial for efficiency!) and the air around the plastic parts acts as an effective insulator of both sound and heat.
3. You wind up building up your subfloor 1.5″ with this system, or the width of a 2×4.
4. I think one of the reasons this works for me is because I have neighbors on either side of me. If I had a north-facing room in a standalone house, for example, I would probably need more heating power.
But frankly, the idea that most people in NYC shouldn’t be using radiant heat is absurd because of the density. We didn’t even have heat for part of the winter–no heat at all–and it wasn’t that bad. Even when it was 20 degrees outside it was still 57 degrees in the house, with no space heaters. That’s not comfortable, but it isn’t pipe-freezing temps either…
I would google Easyflor if you decide you want to rip up your existing floor (a must if you’re going to go radiant, I’m afraid…). I enjoyed working with them and their system is great for DIY.
12:59 poster here. Radiant floor heating does heat the whole house, evenly and unnoticeably. Floors are never hot, just slightly, barely warm on bare feet. Hardly noticable. Honestly — just comfy. And the whole concept is that the heat is evenly dispersed and of course rises evenly from all spots, not just near a vent or radiator, so of course all of the air feels equally comfy. Not having to work around radiators etc…is hardly the best thing about it…it’s really just the even, comfortable heat. You walk into the house and it just feels “right.” No drafts or cool spots.
12:59 – I’m the first poster about radiators, not the second.
I’m very curious – do you have high ceilings? Do you have large rooms? Do you live in a 100-yr old house (built with no thought to insulation) or one of a more recent vintage? Brownstone, brick or frame?
Does it really heat the space well (without the floor being hot, as 1:19 mentions?) Do you usually walk around barefoot or with just socks on? I really want to know.