[pachai]

The next topic that is starting to get to its turn at the front of the line is....
How to add radiant floors to an existing house?

When the contractor happened to demolish the
ceiling in the old kitchen, I did the "midnite
plumber" thing and put a staple-up for the
one small room above. I routed those pipes
back down to the basement for future access.
Drywall is up, and pressure holds at 48psi.


Now I am looking at putting similar loops
in places that are not (yet) accessible.

I have thought of a few options.
Our house has a center 6' wide corridor,
with 2 load-bearing walls, and
12' wide rooms on either side...
Due to a flooded bathtub, the ceiling
in this hall came down. I screwed up some
luan to make it pretty for my mom until I
get to take advantage...for wiring, etc...
(or radiant floors :-)

I am trying to figure out if breaking all the
other ceilings is the only way to put in
radiant heat. Would it suffice to remove a
narrow band of ceiling and use my broken
hallway ceiling for access?

My question is, would a 1/2" pex somewhere
in an 8" joist cavity do me any good at all?
I have some experience fishing 12/2 wire,
but 1/2" pex is not the same...

I could try to figure out how to make
and deploy some "trestles" to hold
the pex up close to the subfloor, but
probably can't get it all the way....and
mustn't forget the nails that come down.

Oh, I just realized...
there is a decorative wood "skirt" around
my house....and I know from insulating
experience, that these are hollow,
and open into the wall cavity.
So that means, I might get access to
the far end of the joist cavity...from outside
my house. But again, is it enough to
just have a pex in a cavity?

Thanks
Seth