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Old 11-04-09, 11:50 PM   #6
AC_Hacker
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Christ View Post
The floor is most probably going to be insulated poured concrete (which may end up being mixed with styrofoam beads) with an overlay. Some rooms may have partial brick/stone floors as well, which add thermal mass and thermal dispersion potential. (Acting like a heat retainer that also helps disperse heat across a larger surface area.)
The styrofoam beads will reduce the thermal conductivity of the concrete...

Last summer, I was testing the thermal conductivity of various aggregates in concrete, and one of my test aggregates was aluminum chips. Made sense, beings as how aluminum is light and a wonderful conductor of heat. What I didn't count on was that the alkaline nature of concrete made the aluminum fizz, and the concrete+aluminum puffed up with a ka-jillion little bubbles and was a worse thermal conductor than plain old concrete.

The rest of your ideas sound really great.
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