radiant garage heat

Rich L.

In my personal experience at my last house John I did not use anti-freeze either. I live in Iowa (occasionally see -20 to -25). I kept my garage around 40 to 45 degrees unless I was goint to work out there and then turn it up to 60 ish. I had no problems with freeze ups.

I built a new house in 06 and this time installed a heat exchanger with anti-freeze for the garage. I did it this way this time so I can completely shut down the garage heat if I desire. Energy costs the way they are I've yet to turn it on! seems a little over kill to spend the extra $$ just to keep the vehicles warm.

Again this is only my experience in my area.

Good luck, Rich L

John Pernell

Q's on whether or not to put in anti-freeze

I have a 2100sf house with a 900 sf garage. The house is on beams with radiant floor heat in the crawl space. The garage is poured concrete with layed in radiant heat. I just bought the house and my question is will anti-freeze be needed in any or all of the house? The prior owners liked to keep it hot in there and were the first owners in 2004.
My issue is the garage. They kept it between 72 and 74 degrees so I'm sure there were no freezing problems with them. In Fairbanks, Alaska we see -50 to -60 in winter. We would REALLY like to be a little more frugal and keep the garage at more around 62 to 65ish. We've heard horror stories of tubes bursting in layed concrete and want to prevent that at all cost. The system is pure water now.
The other problem, maybe, is we want to install a wood stove in the living room. This would cut down on fluid flow right? At -60 is that ok?
I guess the real question is if we do these things in dead winter will there still be enough time between flows to prevent freezing? I don't want to put in anti-freeze but I can't pay $600 a month in heating oil bills either.
My inspector recommended, sorta, when we bought the house to put it in there but we are cautious.
thanks

FATBOY040575

GARAGE HEAT/(ANTI-FREEZE)

Going with what Rich was talking about, I would look into having a contractor put in a flat plate heat exchanger and some shut off valves, this will seperate the garage from the rest of the house and allow you to only run "ANTIFREEZE MIXTURE" in the garage plus give you the option of shutting down that "zone". There are a few other parts and pieces to put in aswell but a contractor can go over that in detail with you.

ALH_4

Antifreeze in Alaska

I would put antifreeze in your garage in a location like Fairbanks. It's just not worth the risk of freezing the tubes to avoid the cost of a small heat exchanger and a circulator/relay. I have a feeling that being frugal will mean turning the garage much lower than 62°F unless you work out there frequently.

Mike Thomas_2

North Slope 18 years

I worked the North Slope for 18 years, and I put glycol in everything. Seemed like a no brainer after you saw the first house that froze up when a guy left the house on an overning stay, or god forbid a two week vacation. The money you save on glycol will seem like pennies after they come in and replace EVERY PIPE IN YOUR HOUSE......

Brad White_187

Power outages

Not using glycol is fine so long as you have constant circulation and a source of heat to put into it. Glycol shines where power outages occur; that to me is the real benefit.

A garage slab to me is the weak link, the first to go in a prolonged power outage (assuming you do not have a generator). For the garage alone, I would use a plate exchanger to isolate it.

The question you have to ask yourself: "Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? In all the excitement, I lost count. Did he use 30%? 40%? 50%? So...ask yourself... do you feel lucky?"