Anyone Have Hydronic Radiant Floor Heat?

[olds]

How do you like it?

 

[Greenman]

Nice heat, sucks for AC.

 

[herm0016]

Out of all the ways of heating, if I build, it will be hot water baseboard with infloor in the kitchen and baths, with a heatpump for cooling and backup heat.

Infoor, when properly done is great. If you are looking at an older system, watch out for polybutelyne pipe. If there is polybutelyne, make sure the loops and the boiler are separated with a heat exchanger, and there is a filter and glycol top off on the loop side. And never run city water in it.

 

[olds]

Don't currently have a system. We are looking at houses and will likely go in and redo all flooring. This seems like a comfortable add for bathrooms and kitchen. Maybe house-wide.

 

[Greenman]

Not a cheap addon. For baths electric warm floor is a more practical option. I've had one client put in radiant heat, he ran all of the tubing himself, had a plumber put in the boiler and control system. I think he was in for over $10k.

I did one system with wall mounted radiators. Every room had it's own thermostat and used a condensing boiler with a small holding tank. Owners loved it, they only heated the rooms they used. My only bitch about the system was the radiator's. The fittings at the wall had to be placed perfectly, an eighth inch off and you have to open the wall to move them.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Sometimes crosses my mind to add it to the lower floor which is the coldest part of house. Kitchen and living room. I have full access to the joists so it would be easy to do.

 

[iRONic]

How do you like it?

We added the electric radiant solution during a bathroom and bedroom remodel in our previous home. Wife & kids loved it.

 

[Leymenaide]

I lived with it for 2 years in a poured concrete home in France. I am not sure I would want in in American Kleenex box construction. It worked fine in a cold damp climate. My feet were always warm.

 

[Greenman]

I lived with it for 2 years in a poured concrete home in France. I am not sure I would want in in American Kleenex box construction. It worked fine in a cold damp climate. My feet were always warm.

This makes me realize that you don't know much about construction.

You know the old saying "they don't build them like they used to"? It's correct. We build them a hundred times better.

 

[Leymenaide]

This makes me realize that you don't know much about construction.

You know the old saying "they don't build them like they used to"? It's correct. We build them a hundred times better.

I have built 9 houses in the last 30 years. Yes they are tighter, yes they are more energy efficient but quality of construction has nose dived since the Amish framers could not compete with the illegals I have been on dozens of building sites in the last decade and have never seen a framing square and rarely a level. The primary goal of the building industry is to get themselves out of warranty. I have seen builders set up separate limited liability companies for each house they build to insulate themselves from law suites. I have taken delivery of a house from a national builder that in one rain event had 27 separate water leaks. The same house had a dry wall screw though a water pipe that decided to leak just after I moved from the house causing a kitchen ceiling collapse. This builder also messed up the grading on a major section of the development and when taken to court lost. Last comment from builder "we payed off the right people we should not be repairing this"

 

[herm0016]

I have built 9 houses in the last 30 years. Yes they are tighter, yes they are more energy efficient but quality of construction has nose dived since the Amish framers could not compete with the illegals I have been on dozens of building sites in the last decade and have never seen a framing square and rarely a level. The primary goal of the building industry is to get themselves out of warranty. I have seen builders set up separate limited liability companies for each house they build to insulate themselves from law suites. I have taken delivery of a house from a national builder that in one rain event had 27 separate water leaks. The same house had a dry wall screw though a water pipe that decided to leak just after I moved from the house causing a kitchen ceiling collapse. This builder also messed up the grading on a major section of the development and when taken to court lost. Last comment from builder "we payed off the right people we should not be repairing this"

sounds like you bought houses from production builders. that is your mistake.

having been around the industry a while, including working on a house in southern France built in the 1600's... only the well built examples of old houses still exist, so you cant really compare a new, crappy built house to a well built house that is very old. a well built house now can be comparted to a well built house then. also a pile of rocks 3 feet thick for walls is a totally different animal to a modern, insulated, vapor closed, engineered structure.

 

[Greenman]

No idea where you're living, but clearly you're dealing with the wrong builders.
Yes, tract homes are built to a price point, and that's often achieved by using the least expensive material, but that doesn't excuse shoddy work.
I mostly add on to existing homes in an area where the majority of houses are at least 70 years old. By todays standards, those houses are trash. Every single one has over spanned rafters, absolute crap foundations, and they gulp energy. They were also incredibly wasteful of material.
What I build are very tight structures designed to survive an earthquake, use very little energy, and are comfortable. Even the tract homes I look at are well put together. Yes, they're built to absolute minimum standards, but those minimum standards are pretty good.

As to you're claim that builders are only concerned about the one year warranty, I would point out that most states have "latent defect" laws. Here in CA a homeowner is covered for ten years from the date of completion. Anyone building sub standard homes as you've described above would be sued to death and stripped of their license.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I think it depends on the purpose the house was built in first place. If you buy in a new subdivision where it's all cookie cutter houses that are built with the sole purpose of selling, then yeah the builders don't care about quality, they just want to minimize costs to make profit and it will be minimum code. The fixtures etc will be the cheapest possible and the overall standards will be lower end, but it will look nice for that wow factor. But if it's a house that someone built for themselves to live in, then the quality will be better because they built it for themselves at first.

In general though houses are probably still better today, when to comes to what's behind the walls. Better thermals, better water protection, lot of the building materials are higher quality etc. The thing you don't see much anymore is over the top stuff like thicker wood, thicker beams, concrete, masonry etc. All that really adds to the cost. Older houses were more overkill structurally, but stuff was way cheaper back then too. You don't see much masonry houses anymore these days for example. When you do see them it's often faux brick siding style materials.

 

[Sukhoi]

How do you like it?

In-laws just got a place up in the mountains that is 100% hydronic radiant powered by a high-input propane 50 gal hot water heater. It's pretty good, though a couple things to note:

• Very slow response time so if you're going to do overnight setbacks you need to start them real early and end them early.
• The lack of airflow makes farts really linger. It's surprising.
• Floor by floor zoned heating is awesome for a 3-story building.
• Shoes are warm when you go to put them on
• Ski boots dry quickly
• Not sure I'd recommend powering it via a hot water heater. This was just replaced 2 yr ago by the prior owners and I'm not sure why they did the hot water heater vs a proper boiler. It's not even a condensing unit so I think it's only something like 70% efficient.

 

[Greenman]

In-laws just got a place up in the mountains that is 100% hydronic radiant powered by a high-input propane 50 gal hot water heater. It's pretty good, though a couple things to note:

• Very slow response time so if you're going to do overnight setbacks you need to start them real early and end them early.
• The lack of airflow makes farts really linger. It's surprising.
• Floor by floor zoned heating is awesome for a 3-story building.
• Shoes are warm when you go to put them on
• Ski boots dry quickly
• Not sure I'd recommend powering it via a hot water heater. This was just replaced 2 yr ago by the prior owners and I'm not sure why they did the hot water heater vs a proper boiler. It's not even a condensing unit so I think it's only something like 70% efficient.

You never use a setback thermostat on cast in place hydronic. The only changes made to the settings should be seasonal.

 

[olds]

In-laws just got a place up in the mountains that is 100% hydronic radiant powered by a high-input propane 50 gal hot water heater. It's pretty good, though a couple things to note:

• Very slow response time so if you're going to do overnight setbacks you need to start them real early and end them early.
• The lack of airflow makes farts really linger. It's surprising.
• Floor by floor zoned heating is awesome for a 3-story building.
• Shoes are warm when you go to put them on
• Ski boots dry quickly
• Not sure I'd recommend powering it via a hot water heater. This was just replaced 2 yr ago by the prior owners and I'm not sure why they did the hot water heater vs a proper boiler. It's not even a condensing unit so I think it's only something like 70% efficient.

I would use it as a supplement to HVAC. We like the house cool at night to sleep but I'd like the bathroom and kitchen floor to be warm when I walk on it barefoot. My wife tells me to just put slippers on but I am a jungle kid.

 

[MrSquished]

I sold a concrete fully detached home to clients 5 years ago with radiant floor heat in both the bedroom and living/kitchen areas, two floors. All run with a tankless water heater. They loved it.

 

[Greenman]

I would use it as a supplement to HVAC. We like the house cool at night to sleep but I'd like the bathroom and kitchen floor to be warm when I walk on it barefoot. My wife tells me to just put slippers on but I am a jungle kid.

For just kitchen and baths it's not worth doing, use electric warm floor instead.

 

[Sukhoi]

You never use a setback thermostat on cast in place hydronic. The only changes made to the settings should be seasonal.

The bottom floor is a slab and what you say is definitely true. It takes hours and hours to just drop a degree. But upstairs the tubing is over the subfloor, and it responds much more quickly. Still much slower than any other type of heating though.

 

[Paperdoc]

We're selling a house my mother-in-law had (she died last year). It is what we call a "core-floor" construction: single floor structure on a solid poured concrete slab, with an array of heating water pipes in the slab. So heat is distributed via the floor throughout. Heat source is a small med-efficiency furnace (some call it a "boiler", but it does NOT get water anywhere close to boiling) with powered damper in the flue and electronic ignition system, fuelled by natural gas. It has a small circulating pump to move the heated water through the pipes, and an automatic system that purges any air and ensures the system is refilled from the water supply for small losses. The house was built this way in the 1940's. We live in a colder area, along the north shore of Lake Superior.

A very significant factor for this type of heating is response time - it is VERY slow to make changes in the house temperature (several hours for a few degrees). To some this is a plus: very stable temperatures at all times. To some it is a minus: can't make any quick changes. For her, it was the latter. As a small elderly person her body temperature sensing system was fluctuating, so she alternated between feeling too cold or too hot. She never did understand the response time thing, so she would jack up the thermostat about 6 degrees, complain it was not getting warmer, and then a few hours later drop it about 8 degrees because it was too hot. Etc. Eventually she stopped that and bought a small electric heater and put it next to where she sat in the Living Room so she could change things in her immediate area quickly. This factor is not really a problem if you understand it and accept, but she did not. I really suggest at timed set-back thermostat is not a great idea in this system. And of course, you cannot add a central A/C system to this design - it has no air circulation facilities at all.

Another small point related to response time and maybe heating efficiency / costs. It is recommended that you do NOT install heavy floor coverings like thick carpets in such a home, because that slows down flow of heat from the concrete slab floor into the room. Many such homes have tile or sheet flooring. My mother-in-law's had an old shag carpet in the Living Room (not recommended), but it still worked just fine.

Over the years she had the furnace serviced from time to time by a contractor, and once in about 40+ years she had it replaced. But it is virtually impossible to do any service work on the pipes embedded in the floor. That is the one item service people caution about. In such systems, eventually (who knows when?) one or more pipes will develop a leak that may become large enough to cause real trouble. They tell stories of such systems in houses of that age that suddenly show a wet area in a room floor, or even water draining out from the side of the house. If that happens, the only real solution is to abandon that system and install something else. However, considering the number of such homes built around here in the 1940's and later, there are not a large number of known failures yet. I'm guessing the most likely causes are corrosion or plugging by hard water deposits of the pipes (depends on your water), and stability of the soil under the concrete slab.