I am building a home and will use radiant floor heating in most of the home. The 1st floor is the garage and I will put the PEX in 4″ of concrete. On the second and third floors I plan to run PEX in the great room and bathrooms and will use baseboard heat in the bedrooms.
I want to use Quik Trak under the great room floor covering (floating cork) and in the bathrooms (tile). The 2 plumbing contractors I had bid the job like Quik Trak. The building inspector I spoke with strongly believes Quik Trak is a waste of money and recommended the staple-up method, which I percieve as less efficient. I plan to run the PEX and install the Quik Trak myself to save $.
I am still leaning toward using Quik Trak but would like someone’s opinion who has Quik Trak in their home. I have researched Warmboard’s subflooring product and believe it to be too expensive and too heavy.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Teo
Replies
Greetings Teo,
As a first time poster Welcome to Breaktime.
This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again.
Perhaps it will catch someones attention that can help you with advice.
Cheers
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
Edited 4/12/2005 2:13 pm ET by the razzman
bump
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
The most consistent surface temperatures with the lowest fluid temperatures for a given density of pipe in a subfloor system will be achieved with top surface mounted channels or sub surface heat transfer plates. <!----><!---->
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The suspended and staple up systems at the same tube density must run at a higher temperature to achieve similar outputs but have the negative risk of inconsistent surface temperatures. To counter the negative effects one would have to increase the tube density and alter the tube pattern layouts which equals more materials and labor.<!---->
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In very general terms the messages from the thermography applies to all systems, however within each application their will be small performance differences between manufacturers based on proprietary materials and installation methods.
Please keep in mind when one looks at the photo's - the surface temperatures in a properly designer radiant system are based on heat loads. Heating loads in the 25 to 30 Btu/hr/sf operate around skin surface temperatures appx 80 to 85 deg F. The pictures illustrate normal operating temps so imagine what you are seeing in the pictures is creating a feeling around or slightly higher than your skin temperature.
These photo credits belong to an industry collegue, RPA member, Bob 'Hot Rod' Rohr. Thanks Bob!
An ASHRAE research project looked at this topic in some detail. I wrote an article on it for a Canadian publication last year. If you would like to discuss it further, let me know.
View Image
http://www.healthyheating.com/blog/images/Picture2_04.jpg
RBean
http://www.healthyheating.com
http://www.healthyheating.com/blog
Edited 4/16/2005 4:59 pm ET by RB
Edited 4/16/2005 5:00 pm ET by RB
Edited 4/16/2005 5:06 pm ET by RB
Thanks for the information and the links to your website. I would like to have a copy of the article you wrote if you do not mind. Is it on your website?
The photos speak volumes. I am curious which brand of "Heat Transfer Plates" were used in this example. Quik Trak channels are spaced 7" apart and use either 5/16" or 3/8" PEX. (I cannot remember at the moment.) We plan to put a floating cork floor over the Quik Trak in our great room. Would you have any concerns with using cork over Quik Trak?
My neighbor used staple up with laminate flooring and the floor seemed cold to me. We live in Southcentral Alaska and most folks use staple down with 1.5" of gypcrete. I wanted a more flexible floor on which to walk, hence the Quik Trak approach.
Best regards,
Teo
Article: The copyrights are owned by the magazine - I’ll have to get their permission to make it available…stay tuned.<!----><!---->
Plates: The plates were donated by Radiant Engineering…C Fin. Stay with the higher quality producers such as Radiant Engineering or Wirsbo. <!---->
<!----><!----><!---->Cork<!----><!---->: As long as you follow the manufacturer’s recommendations you’ll be fine. A professional designer will take into consideration the floor assembly and the heating load to come up with the surface and fluid temperatures. Just let her/him know if you have any plans for ‘other’ floor coverings on top of the cork…i.e. throw rugs.<!---->
Surface Temp: The more efficient the building the cooler the floors…it’s the oxymoron between efficiency and comfort…A 77 deg F floor can deliver a nominal 12 Btu/hr/sf which is approaching above normal efficiencies…for cold climates. Your skin temp is a nominal 84 deg F…if the heated floor is less than your skin temp it will feel cool even though it’s heating. This may be the case with your neighbor’s home. Work directly with the designer if this is also your situation…it will mean reducing the area of the floor to be heated - so the load per sq. ft goes up and thus a need to increase the surface temp which improves the experience of warm floors…the challenge is to define which areas to heat. <!---->
This is a graphic from our book, Home Owners Guide to Indoor Comfort Quality, the numbers on the left represent the percentage of people dissatisfied as a function of floor temperatures. The bottom values are the actual surface temperatures.
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http://www.healthyheating.com/blog/images/Floor%20temp_01.jpgRBean
http://www.healthyheating.com
http://www.healthyheating.com/blog
Wirsbo sells both the Quik Trak product and the extruded aluminum transfer plates. You can get an idea of relative pricing by Googling for Quik Trak.
My heating sub says that Quik Trak is the best all around method, but most expensive, comparing staple-up, transfer plates, and Quik Trak.
Teo,
I've just placed the article on plates in our design solutions page on our site.
As Gene said the quick track is nice, the plates will work too...
By the way, there are certification bodies in the U.S. and in Canada for radiant hydronic designers and contractors...if you have a choice in your area - pick the skilled and certified. RBean
http://www.healthyheating.com
http://www.healthyheating.com/blog
Thanks once again for the information Mr. Bean. Unfortunately, when I attempted to open the PDF file of your article, I only saw a blank screen.
If it is not too much trouble, please email the article to me at [email protected]
Regards,
Teo
No trouble at all.
Consider it done.
RBRBean
http://www.healthyheating.com
http://www.healthyheating.com/blog
I think a recent issue of FHB covered this topic. In the current issue a manufaturer wrote ####Letter T o The Editor responce stating that because their version of Quik-Trak (maybe even QT) has aluminum fibers in the panels, the heat transfer is more efficient.
Check it out.
F