Extending Radiant Heating to a finished attic

EricPetty

I am in the process of buying a home that was built in the late 40's. It has oil-fired radiant heating in the original living areas (the downstairs areas) but the house was built with an unfinished attic space. Later (I suspect in the 80's) the attic was finished, but they opted to use electric heating (baseboards in one room, a pair of small wall mounted fan/ceramic heaters in the other). I'm not a fan of these solutions and the room with the fan heaters does not have flooring in it, so it will need flooring anyway.

I was curious if we could tap into the existing cast iron feeds to install a newer pex-based heated floor upstairs and how big the project would be. These are all living spaces, so their temperatures and insulation would be similar (not a semi outdoor space like a sun room or something).

I can't seem to find a lot of info on extending an existing mid-century design, so I don't really know how feasible this is. The electric systems are ugly, inefficient and really detract in my mind and as I have an opportunity to do this now rather than later I want to get some kind of idea how complicated it is. I am not expecting quotes (that would be ridiculous without looking at it). Basically i am trying to figure out if it's something I can reasonably do without spending new car sums of cash.

JUGHNE

It might be simplest to just run PEX from the attic down to the boiler. Is it possible to open the attic floor and drop down thru an inside wall, lower closet or box out in a corner to hide the PEX?

Some existing CI system piping can get out of balance if tapped into. Also old CI rads and newer light weight rads don't play well together. Your attic could be a separate zone with it's own controls. FWIW

EBEBRATT-Ed

What @jughne said. Separate zone & separate controls is the way to go

Gordy

When you say radiant heating what type? I say this because some confuse radiant heating which is floors, ceilings, and wall panels with radiators, and baseboards which use convection in the process.

Jamie Hall

I was wondering that, too -- makes quite a difference in what I might say...