Quote:
Originally Posted by buffalobillpatrick
DEnd I see that u r in NC
Way different from cold Rocky Mountain climate zones 5-7 with 6-9 month heating seasons.
Here, Radiant heated floors are the most comfortable, along with low gas bills, (no A/C and ducts required)
Scorched air heat sucks, dry air, dust bunnies, hot air rises up to ceiling creating a higher heat loss, while feet stay cold.
U r right PVC with large pieces of tile would not work, but small flat stones in a bed of silicone should, maybe
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Not having A/C does change the equation somewhat, but not a whole lot. You can go with radiant baseboards, or even a mini-split (and get the benefit of A/C for the few days of the year you "need" it). Also because each of those systems are low mass they are able to more appropriately respond to temperature changes in the house, greatly reducing the chance of thermal overshoot of the set point.
Also the source of the heat in a house has zero effect on the humidity in the house, unless you are burning stuff inside the house air envelope (furnaces are actually burning gas outside of the house's air envelope). House use, air leaks and ventilation strategy determine household humidity. Dust bunnies are ultimately caused by dirt, dead skin, spider webs, etc... a forced air HVAC system can actually help reduce them, as they filter the air removing a portion of the dust that cause dust bunnies.
Yes hot air rises, one of the issues that warm floors help with is the stack effect that is caused by heating the air. However it only helps with the issue it does not eliminate it. The driver of the stack effect is Adding energy, the less energy we add the lower the temperature difference between the various layers, and the larger those layers are. In a totally closed system (ie no energy loss) the temperature will stabilize across the entire system after a short time period after energy is added.
My point in all of this isn't to tell you that you are wrong, but to have you re-examine your choices because there may be a cheaper way to do what you want to do. Why? because the same systems that work for leaky houses don't really work well for highly insulated air tight homes. It's very very easy to throw money at a system and have it just become a problem or never used. I'm just saying take a step back figure out what your floor temps are likely going to need to be and see if the system response times are going to actually be able to meet your needs.