Radiant and humidity?

Jeff W_2

was built in the 1950's

Jeff W_2

Radiant and humidity

I have a customer who we installed radiant heat for (Wirsbo Quick Trak, used to have copper baseboard throughout). They are now having problems including: kitchen cabinets have separated from ceiling with 1/2" gaps, door frames have separated from walls a little bit, door panels are also separating with spaces. Her contractor says it is because of the radiant heat and she needs humidification. Has anyone else experienced this?

Gordy

How old is the house?

My house has had radiant for 54 years. Nothing like that has ever happend! If anything to much humidity could be a problem....People are always afraid of what they don't know/ understand!

Didcontractor install failing products?


Gordy

Constantin

Sounds to me like...

... someone needed an excuse.

Radiant heat per se will not cause a house to dehumidifiy any faster than baseboard, etc. Infiltration during the winter months will, however. If the cabinets were installed when they were full of water moisture, then a month or two of dry indoor air will make them shrink quite a bit.

It's one of the reasons that quarter-sawn wood is preferred in RFH applications. It shrinks less sideways, therefore it will not open gaps as easily as plainsawn wood. It's also the reason why wood flooring is seasoned ideally for a couple of weeks on site before being installed - to ensure that the moisture content inside the wood drops.

So, in my mind humidification would have been needed whether she kept the prior heating system or not.

Jeff W_2

But...

The customer says that the cabinets were installed 9 years ago, and never a problem before. This is the 2nd winter with the new radiant. She says it happened a little bit the first year, but is much worse this year. Nothing else has been done to the house and it seems awfully coincidental that once the radiant went in, she started having the problems. The bedrooms don't have radiant and they have had no problems in there. This is a weird one.

Big Will

forced air

I have been installing forced air for a long time i have only been in the raidiant industry about six years. I know for a fact that forced air dries the air far more than any form of raidiant. I have never seen this problem with properly installed and weathered material. The only exeption was a hard wood floor that was sanded and then left unfinished for about three weeks during the wet season. they sealed the floor and it seporated all over the place as it dried and shrunk. The hardwood guy blamed the forced air system. All I had to say is there are thousands of homes within five miles with the same type of system and hardwood floors and no problems. It not your heating system.

Jeff Lawrence_25

Look at the degree days

from last year and this year. Around here, it has been colder this year than last, although I don't have the actual data to support that conclusion.

hr

excessive floor temperatures

can cause some of the issues you describe.

What supply temperatures are they running to the floor and what type of floor surface temperatures?

Be good to know the btu load the floor is being asked to handle.

Heat flux? that is the percentage of AVAILABLE floor panel being asked to deliver the load.

Is it possible they are running the former baseboard temperatures to the floor system?

Also get a moisture meter and start checking the wood.

Both www.nofma.org and www.launstein.com have excellent wood floor and radiant info.

hot rod

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Weezbo

it is within the level of possibility...

here is why...

if the baseboard was under estimated . the boiler was pumping heat to them . it seldom hit on a Comfort level the people could live with because the basic issue of PPP in the first place had the convectors where they just were to few and far between.. now that you have installed the radiant, might have made a slight mistake by sizing the requirements to the baseboard..(not saying you did)..and finding that it was not producing at say 100 degrees F, banged the floor up into the range that basically was near baseboard temps...to meet the heat loss ...you might have overshoot, coupled with high temps, going Bang Baaang..except, now, it is distributed all over the place...

then too, the homeowner might have the place turned up to 90 when you are not around...having lived in warmer climates i somewhat like HEAT in very cold weather instead of having my floor heat rolling at 60 degrees constant i Bang it up to produce 80 in the room:)

i have seen people who have had changes in life ,frick with the thermostats ,to the point it would drive the T stat up the wall:)

Gordy

Fireplaces?

Do they have fireplaces? They can suck the humidity out of the house pretty quick.

Any new ventilation systems? Bath fans, Super sucker range hood?

Kitchen cabinets seperating from ceiling or soffit, sounds like poor installation practices, or overloaded cabinets.


I can't imagine any kitchen cabinet shrinking 1/2" in its vertical dimmension. I always screw upper cabinets to ceiling or soffit when applicable. Sometimes you can't when you have installs with no soffits and 30" to 36" uppers.


Door frames seperating. If this is all new stuff sounds like juicy materials introduced into an average home enviroment unseasoned before installing.
When you say "their contractor" what work did the contractor do?

Gordy

larry

It doesn't make sense at all. Humidity is water vapor which is a gas. As a gas, "humidity" will more or less equalize within the house. You shouldn't get more humidity hanging out in the non-radiant sections of the house and less in the radiant (unless the spaces are sealed from each other and the tightness of the two sections of the house are very different). Some other factor must be in play.

G.Kaske_2

Agreed

Something else is array with the enviroment. Something has changed besides the radiant.

Many suttle changes can contribute to one problem.

Every forced air house I have owned has been on the dry side even with the help of an april air. My home now with radiant is always a comfortable humidity level with no extra help from other devices. I have four masonary fireplaces I like to burn, but my humidity levels have never gotten below 25%.

Speaking of which what are the humidity levels in the home in question?

Gordy

Tekkie

Radiant and humidity

I don't think the radiant system has anything to with it *unless* the "contractor" hacked into a support they shouldn't have. It may be a complete different system that is failing and causing these problems - leaky roof - water leak - foundation subsidence. What area of the country?