Quote:
Originally Posted by stevehull
DE
I should have been more specific . . .
The floors are not on grade but above a crawl space so that is not an issue. The floor is not a heated floor but a radiant one with a floor temp of no more than 72-73 F, The home heating will likely be ~ 40% ducted warm air and 60% radiant, so the floors are only about 1/2 of the heat BTU load.
I have been in several passive homes, but have not been in them on a winter morning at 6 AM.
Just materials; PEX, pumps, manifolds, valves, water heater, etc is close to $8K.
This is a lot of $ for a warm floor . . . perhaps a good pair of wool shearing slippers?
Sounds like you are happy with the electric radiant?
Steve
|
Hi,
It seems like the most expensive and labor intensive part of your floor is the concrete.
We use pex with alum heat dispersion plates air stapled to the subfloor over a conditioned crawl space. Insulation is placed in the joist spaces under the pex tubes. This is cheap and easy and it works -- labor is minimal.
Some pictures here:
A Simple DIY Solar Space and Water Heating System
Mostly on this page:
$2000 Solar Space + Water Heating -- Radiant Floor Design
The cheap Harbor Freight air stapler made this go very fast.
For us, this is the only form of heat in this part of the house -- whether it would be worth it if you already have a heating system and are adding the floor just to be able to walk on warm floor I'm not sure -- for me walking on warm floors is not really that big a deal, but I know some like it a lot.
I can say that a floor heated to 72F is not going to feel like a toasty warm floor.
Gary