My house is a side split. The Kitchen / front room side has a 3’crawl under it. The Kitchen is vinyl and the front room is 3/8 hard wood. I would like to put in infloor heating. I was thinking of nailing it up to the bottom of the joist. Our heat system is oil forced air.
SO what would be the best way to heat the floor? Don’t no a lot about in floor heating.
Thanks
Replies
In your case it would be underfloor radiant/staple up with foil plates to spread the ehat, and insulation under that to help the enrgy move up and not down.
problem for you is twofold.
One is that a major benefit of radiant floor heat is the thermal mass heat storage in a concrete slab, but retrofits in wood frame floors lose this benefit.
The other is that you currently have a furnace heating the air to warm the space.
Supplying heat to the PEX floor distribution takes hot water and mixing valves. This can sometimes be supplied off a domestic hot water heater, but generally off a boiler instead of a furnace.
If you main concern is that you have heat, but have cold floors, I would say to consider underfloor insulation and make sure you have controled all your infiltration at the lower levels of the house as well as the upper
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Our Kitchen / front room area always seems colder mostly of the high vaulted ceilings. There 9' up to 15' so all the heat goes up.
I recently added some "radiant" in my own house. On the advice of a plumber friend, I just attached the tube onto the bottom of the subfloor, no transfer plates, and installed bubble foil insulation on the bottom of the 2 x 6 floor joists. I ran two tubes in each joist space. I wasn't looking for a primary heat source, I just wanted to increase the comfort level. If I was looking for a primary heat source (meaning the radiant floor was the only means to heat a room), I would have consulted a heating designer. I didn't use the transfer plates. My boiler is set at about 140 degrees. I still have my CI radiators.
I must say I am very happy with it. Yeah, some thermal mass would be nice, but still, compared to cold floors, it's tons better. In my case, I already had a boiler. It really helps your perception of comfort to have the floors warmer.