Poured concrete floors with radiant heating.

Radiant cooling produces surface condensation. It can be done, but it’s kind of a big deal.

Master Plvmber

in Flooring 13 years and 6 months ago

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8104012 | 13 years and 6 months ago

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Has anyone gone down this route?  I love the look of concrete once polished and the idea of radiant heating seems great but I believe wire element seems like the best way over water.  Any thoughts on that or on poured concrete as a flooring?

Master Plvmber | 13 years and 6 months ago

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Why on earth would you prefer electric element heaters over hot water?

greenmountain | 13 years and 6 months ago

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Please explain.   Is this a renovation?  If so, what type of floor is there now and how is it supported?  How big is the area?  Other than radiant heat, what type of heating system do you have or are you planning?

Bklnite | 13 years and 6 months ago

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Electric heat is way more expensive to run than gas (or oil), but how much more? A friend was looking at heating a garage, and wanted to run the numbers to see if the lower upfront cost of electric (baseboards in his case) is outweighed by the lower ongoing operating cost of adding a zone to the hydronic heating system.

If you can estimate how many BTUs you would use over a period of time, divide by BTUs per unit of energy using conversions…
138,690 BTUs per gallon of heating oil
100,000 BTUs per therm of natural gas
  3,413 BTUs per kwh electricity
Then multiply by the cost per unit of energy.  Electric heat is 100% efficient (all the energy gets turned in to heat) and for gas or oil systems are heat I think you’d divide the BTUs needed (output) by the efficiency of the system (80% or less typically; or 90%+ for hi efficency) to get the BTUs of energy input. Is that a reasonable way to estimate the cost?

Bklnite | 13 years and 6 months ago

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And, a related question about oil vs. gas, … with these numbers: 1.4    therms of gas per gallon of oil (approximate)
$1.75     cost per therm of gas (all in, supply, delivery, taxes)
$2.45     cost of gas equivilant to 1gal oil
$3.50     per gallon of oil
$1.05     savings per gallon by replacing oil with gas So, if I use about 4000 gallons a year of oil a heating season, I could potentially save $4k in fuel costs by replacing the oil boiler with a similar efficiency gas boiler?

katmadden | 13 years and 6 months ago

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Can you use the tubes for a water based heating system to run cool water through in the summer to cool sufficiently to avoid installing an AC as well?