Radiant hydro floor retrofit Ideas Advice Appreciated

smf

Background; 45 year old 2 family house Queens, NYC. Hot Water heating, boiler and furnace replaced due to Hurricane Sandy approx 2 years ago.

Ground floor apartment floor will be replaced with porcelain wood look tile as the common area (kitchen-living room) flooring needs replacement due to Sandy. Preexistent concrete slab has original copper pipes however one area in slab has a leak. I assume other "in concrete copper" can also develop leaks.

Would like to install hydronic radiant in this area (kitchen-living room) approx 350 square feet. Unit is well insulated and already has vinyl storm windows, door. 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom have baseboard hot water heating. My thought is to run pex to them bypassing the old copper. Floors in bedrooms are fine and have nice 45 year old oak parkay.

What is suggested for radiant install? Have seen many types of board, foam material mats, etc etc. Is there any pex retaining matting that can be directly tiled? If so is normal thinset used or a different substance?

Thank you

hot_rod

If you want to go back to floor radiant it would be nice to get some insulation below it. I doubt that old slab had much?

There are a number of way to buy or make a build up. How much headroom can you give up. Adding insulation will reduce ceiling height. And it messes with the stair riser height.

Panel radiators, or ceiling radiant may be more "installer friendly"

smf

An inch or so seems ok. Dont some of the insulated boards add that approx? How good is ceiling radiant since hot air rises?

RobG

smf said:

An inch or so seems ok. Dont some of the insulated boards add that approx? How good is ceiling radiant since hot air rises?

You just said the magic words "hot air rises". Radiant heat radiates. Think of a bonfire. If heat rose you would never get warm standing next to it. The key is to insulate above the ceiling to direct the heat downwards. Ceiling radiant works very well.

Rich_49

SMF ,
Question . What do you suppose the odds are that the top of the sun is always facing us ?

All radiant requires insulation on the opposite side of the heated space to influence which way heat will go . R , by the way in insulation means resistance .

RobG

In my analogy above about a bonfire, consider the ground that the bonfire is on as insulation, it forces the radiation up and out.