Me and me mother in law (yes, I that nuts) are in the planning process of putting an in-law apartment in her barn. The plan is to pour a slab in the existing barn and insulate it. My question is in every application of radiant heat that I have seen, the boiler is placed in a basement and the radiant tubes are in the first floor framing. Can a boiler for heat be paced on the same level as the pex tubing? I have also never seen an application where the boiler is on the same floor with baseboard heat. Have I just not seen enough?
The idea of electric radiant heat is out due to the high cost of electricity.
I meditate, I burn candles, I drink green tea, and still I want to smack someone.
Replies
No problem doing what you want to do. It's a closed loop system and the water is circulated by a pump.
Actually in this application it is called a circulator, not a pump.
Edited 9/20/2009 7:56 pm ET by BoJangles
Ya what Bojangles said,
Our system designed by Northeast Radiant Tech (look em up one of the co-owners posts here a lot).
I've got one circulator pump that pumps the water to the slab below the boiler, to the underside of the joists above the boiler and waaay up to the third floor to either radiators or staple up-havnt decided yet.
Daniel Neumansky
Restoring our second Victorian home this time in Alamdea CA. Check out the blog http://www.chezneumansky.blogspot.com/
Oakland CA
Crazy Homeowner-Victorian Restorer
Don't neglect to adequately support the weight of the boiler.
If the radiation is lower than the boiler it is extra imortant that a low water cut off device is used. It is a code requirement anyway, but have seen it overlooked many times.
Thanks to everybody for the answers. We are just in the planning phase now and trying to figure on what works, and what might work. I am glad to know that radiant heat will work in this situation.
As far as the low water shut off- I learned the hard way on that one. We needed a boiler serviced after a lightning strike and the tech that came out wasn't sure how to re-wire the low water cut off so he bypassed it. He also admitted that he was color blind. Not the type of guy you want to be working with a bunch of wire that are every color of the rainbow.
Long story short, boiler runs dry, boiler cracks and starts burning the insulation in the jacket, wife and I catch it before a really big problem, service company buys us a nice new boiler.
Lesson learned- beware of color blind electricians.If you can smile when everything is going wrong, it just means you have figured out who to blame.