Starting the planning for an underfloor system. Have questions.

GaryG

The plan is to be heating the first floor(2200 sq ft) of my home with staple up underfloor radiant and have a separate zone for upstairs(700 sq ft) that will not have radiant.(suggestions for how to heat this area welcome).



1. What is the best(most efficient and reliable) heating source if natural gas is the fuel?

2. Please share your thoughts on aluminum plates. Worth it or waste of money?

3. What tubing size, loop length and layout would yield the highest BTU per sq ft?( i would rather spend a little more now and have too much heat than too little)

4. Preferred manifolds? circulating pumps?

5. any good pics of nice neat installations? I am an electrician not a plumber by trade and will be doing the entire installation by myself. I can make an electrical panel look like artwork, but could use a nice pic of how a clean plumbing installation should look.

radiantdave

my thoughts

high effic. is best units like the htp elite have been reliable i like htp's contender

all though floors will if designed right perform very well without plates plates do have thier place in the system. to put it simply a system without plates performs for examples sake85% the same system with plates 100%.they offer better heat transfer and more evenly distribute the heat to surrounding floor there by increasing system effic.

a design would have to be done to determine tubing amounts and # of loops and loop footages.and water temp required . 1/2 and 3/8 tubing from wirsbo is very good and easy to work with.spacing can be changed to allow for more tube per area.but remember there are length limits !

heat output is the same no matter the size of tube only the flow changes and 3/4 is really hard to work with in stapleup.

manifolds by tubing manufacturer are reccomended.

pumps i prefer are taco however b&g nrf seriesare pretty good although both have had flow check issues e mail me or call i will get you pics.if interested.

do you have a local supply house that works with radiant heat and they are not still in the dark ages?they should be your design source because you will have many more questions and a good face to face with the guy designing your system will be very bennificial.

CMadatMe

Design

Would go with a condensing gas boiler me personally a Viessmann Vitodens 200. Radiant would be plates, 3/8" tubing is sufficient. Would use a Gundfoss Alpha as a radiant system pump. For the second floor would do panel rads sized to utilize the radiant water temps. Rads would also be manifold using a Alpha as a system pump.



But as always the first step is a heat loss and the second is a radiant design to see what water temps you need. Then the heat loss for the second floor. Once this is completed then pick the boiler.

furthur

plates

If your worried about efficiency, use plates.  If your doing staple up with plates, use pex-al-pex, even though it is a serious pain to work with (kinks very easily).



Know your heat loss.  Shoot for outdoor reset and condensing boiler.