Can I install radiant heating in my older home?

Q:

I’m renovating an older home, can I install radiant heating on the first and second floors of the home?

A:

Yes you can install radiant in-floor heating on the first and second floors of your home when you are renovating it. There are many things that you will have to do before you can do this though, to do this you should be doing a very large renovation to the home. Radiant heating is basically water lines that are placed on top of your sub-floor and then are covered in a “gypcrete” which is a type of concrete.

Usually the gypcrete is about 1.5 inches thick. There is a brief list of the things that you will have to do to the home so that you can install radiant in-floor heating in to it;

• You will have to completely remove the existing flooring regardless if it’s wood, tile or carpet from anywhere the radiant heat is going to be placed.

• You are going to have to make sure that the floor joist are strong enough to take the extra weight that comes with installing a inch and a half of gypcrete over the heat lines.

• You will have to remove all the trim that is near the floor. Baseboards and door trim will have to be removed to get a smooth finish.

• You will have to remove all interior doors that will be in the way. When they are reinstalled they will either have to be cut down by 1.5 inches or the whole framing of the door will have to be moved up.

• You will have to remove drywall in certain areas of the home to install manifolds in the walls and also to install the thermostats that run the system.

• There will have to be holes made in walls and wall plates so that the piping can come from the basement (usually where the boiler is placed) to feed the upper floors with heat.

• Any hole in the sub-floor from anything like old wiring or old plumbing that was moved must be plugged or the gypcrete will leak through.

• You will have to install wood barriers at certain area’s like at the top of the stairs to create an edge where the gypcrete will stop.

The installation of the piping and the gypcrete should be installed by qualified professionals that are experienced in this field of work, if this isn’t done right it can cost you a lot of money and wasted time.

After the in-floor piping has been installed and the gypcrete as well on top of it then you will be able to install your flooring and all your trim. You will probably have to repaint the walls as well because gypcreting can be a messy business and your walls will be a little dirty from workers touching it or leaning on it while they are doing the installation.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.

Where Does The Heat Come From In Radiant Heating For Homes?

Q:

When you have radiant heat as the main source of heat in a home where does the heat actually come from?

A:

There are two types of radiant heat that typically are available on the market for residential homes, one is electric floor heat and the other is hot water floor heat.

ELECTRIC HEAT

Electric in-floor heating is most commonly seen in bathroom floors but there are times when people install them in all floors of a home to help heat the home. In colder climates it’s usually not enough to heat an entire home all by its self; you usually require baseboard heaters or a main forced air heating system like a furnace.

Electric heating are heat lines or “mats” that are installed on top of the sub-floor and then are hooked to a thermostat on the wall. They are powered solely by electricity. As the heat lines warm up so does the finished flooring on top of them. Electric heat is predominantly placed under tile on floors, this helps give it thermal mass. When the electric heat warms up the thermal mass of the tile and mortar that is underneath it then it starts to radiate heat outward in the air. Because the air above the tile is colder then the heat rises up towards the ceiling of the home constantly. The tile will continue to radiate heat to a limited extent even after the heat lines have stopped producing heat. Electric heating lines are limited in the amount of heat that they can create; they also require a lot of electricity to do so depending on the amount of heat that you want out of them.

HOTWATER HEAT

Hot water in-floor heating is exactly what it sounds like, it is hot water that can be made from several different kinds of sources, and it is then circulated through piping that is placed under the finished flooring of your home to heat it. Hot water heat produces enough heat for you entire home no matter how cold a climate you live in. You will not require any extra heating sources like electric in-floor.

The hot water is circulated from a central location and fed into the piping, the area’s are usually broken down into zones so that you are able to control the temperature of the zones depending on the area’s use and also depending on how warm or cold the room is because of other forces such as sunlight through windows or heat making units like fireplaces.

Hot water in-floor usually is installed in 1.5 inches of “gypcrete” a concrete product that is designed to be installed over heat lines to create thermal mass. Because it is imbedded in the gypcrete hot water in-floor is extremely efficient in its heating. Long after hot water has stopped circulating through the lines the floor will continue to radiate heat, hot water in-floor takes a while to come up to temperature from completely cold but it also takes a long time to cool down as well.

Hot water in-floor heating is one of the most efficient ways to heat your home regardless of what fuel source it comes from.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.