Herringbone & Radiant Heat
For our second floor living room & dining room, we love the idea of wide plank hardwood floors set in a herringbone pattern. The problem is that we would like to employ radiant heating underneath and are concern about both the dimensional stability of the wood pattern and not damaging the radiant heating system during…
For our second floor living room & dining room, we love the idea of wide plank hardwood floors set in a herringbone pattern. The problem is that we would like to employ radiant heating underneath and are concern about both the dimensional stability of the wood pattern and not damaging the radiant heating system during the installation. For a more contemporary look, we were thinking a large format of 5†x 40†stained quarter sawn white oak planks (avoiding exotic woods and plain sawn woods) and Warmboard radiant subfloors. Can anyone recommend other wood possibilities and/or radiant heating options?
Thanks
We gut renovated a 4 story brownstone and used Warmboard on 2 full floors with 3″ quarter sawn red oak wood floors on top and the other 2 floors the radiant piping was laid into the cement with tile above them on one floor and regular 2-1/4 grade 2 oak floors in the garden level tenants apt. The radiant heat is the best, it distributes the heat evenly and efficiently. It is great to walk around barefoot and feel how warm you feet are from the radiant floor heating. Initially it took some getting used to the wood floors as in the early morning when the heat was going on for the first time in the morning, the wood floors would creak and I was thinking someone was walking aound the otherwise quiet house. As with other city noises we got used to it and now several years later we hardly notice the creaking and it remains quiet all day, unlike steam radiators that hiss and the pipes bang all day and all night. Go for the Warmboard on the wood floors and put the piping into the cement for the tiles floors, it works and feels Great!
Thanks for the Warmboard reviews. I’ve been interested in it for a while and this confirms my understanding.
Going4broke – That’s a good idea about the insulation first. I had expected to insulate under the floor, between the joists, but perhaps it’s quicker and better to lay down an insulation board on top of the joists before installing the warmboard. Hmmmm. Something to consider….
Jim Hill, RA, LEED AP
Urban Pioneering Architecture
Jim – experience with them was good. My setup was speced out by a heating engineer they recommended and he did what he was supposed to. The subfloor system is not materially more difficult to lay than ordinary subfloor (you just need to follow the map the heating engineer laid out). Laying the pipe into the floor is simple (although you do need to do some custom routing generally close to the manifolds). Plumbing the heating system (including indirect hot water) was more complicated than a conventional system but manageable provided you follow the directions of the heating engineer and/or boiler manufacturer). It does introduce extra hassle from that point on in terms of protecting the pex tubing in the floor as the renovation progresses but before the floor can be laid (covered it with masonite) and then when the floor is being laid. One other hassle which has significant secondary benefits (sound & heat insulation/efficiency) is that it is a very good idea to lay insulation under the warmboard (ideally touching it).
re: masonry…
I am a diyer, not a contractor, so my experience is limited. After doing research, I went with a product that specs out 1/2″ hardiboard over the pipe system, which is set in a plastic framework. The plastic framework creates an airspace that insulates fairly well for both sound and heat, and the 1/2″ hardiboard creates an effective thermal mass. Total height sacrifice = 1 1/2″.
I am impressed with the results. I have a fairly responsive system for radiant, but it’s also crazy efficient. I haven’t been able to replace my boiler yet, and am still seeing gas bills that are as much as 30% lower than the existing baseboard system.
Jim, I’ve been working with Warmboard quite a bit the last 5 years or so and we work very well together. The product really idiot-proofs an installation if you know what I mean; it makes radiant work to its best.
warmboard is easy to work with,but check out climate panels from Zurn.They are basically set-up the same,but climate panels are 1/4 inch shorter vertically and lighter with a lower price and with slightly less btu output
Going4broke,
How was your experience with the Warmboard? Was it easy to work with and install?
Jim Hill, RA, LEED AP
Urban Pioneering Architecture
Master Plumber,
I’ve been eyeing Warmboard for use in a new house I’m doing. It seems like a great product. How was your experience with it?
Jim Hill, RA, LEED AP
Urban Pioneering Architecture
we used warmboard throughout with Mesquite hardwood planks over the top. Mesquite very good for this application (besides being environmentally low impact) because it is one of the most dimensionally stable woods available as well as being one of the hardest woods available.
http://tinytimbers.com/janka.htm
http://www.pratersflooring.com/pages/residentialpages/moisture%20stability.html
Because it is so hard, the wood planks are cut to 1/2 thick which makes the heating that much more responsive (incidentally I would disagree about radiant being best set in masonary – this is an old school approach that produces a less responsive heating system – it takes longer for the house to cool adjust temperature. The advantage is that the house doesn’t cool down as fast but it also can’t warm up as quickly. Our system is responsive to the extent we can use programable thermostats to keep the house warm when we want it/don’t pay to keep it warm when we dont want). At any rate, after several years in the house with this system, we have found the system works very well, is inexpensive to run and we have had no issue with damage from expansion/contraction etc.
It is also a beautiful wood that can be used in herringbone pattern (actually this works well as the mesquite boards are always short given the size of the mesquite ‘tree’). Wide plank will be more expensive and at some point even with mesquite poses a challenge re expansion contraction (I think our boards are 2.75″ wide).
We got our wood from faifer mesquite who have a picture of herringbone on their website:
http://www.mesquitefloors.com/flooring.html
The last thing I’ll mention is that getting this set up correctly and building around it through our renovation did make the job significantly more complicated. At times I regretted this (as i have other decisions relating to the reno) although the end result is now fantastic.