Staple-up heat transfer plate material ?

Pete Brush

I've decided that a dry staple-up system is a better fit for a new 3000 s.f. residential system than a wet system, but I am boggled by all of the variations of heat transfer plates. I have seen extruded aluminum, galvanized steel, and several recommendations for roll-your-own (literally) plates made from aluminum sheet. One of my primary concerns is the abrasion from a plate against the PEX tubing that might result in failure. The extruded plates seem to be an attempt to minmize this, but they reduce the contact area to the tubing by grooving the i.d. of the plate. I would like to hear from folks with real-world experience with these plates, thanks !

Chris Maderia

Transfer Plates

Extruded plates by far are hands down the best plates. They give you a much better heater transfer and distribute the heat more evenly across the floor. The other benifits are ease of installation and lower water temps.

Troy_3

Extruded plates

are the answer. That leave us with two choices- Full tight contact with the tube surface or a grooved out channel to support the tube and transfer the heat. If you to insulate against heat transfer than a grooved channel would be best. It radiant heating we want the highest and quickest heat transfer possible. That's why we only use Thermo-fin extruded aluminum plates. They are a little heavier and a lot tighter fit and well worth a few extra pennies.

John Felciano

Plates

The thermofin plates don't have the grooves that are in the RTI plates.The RTI plates rely on the tubing expanding to fit tightly.

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hot_rod

Plates O plenty

Here are a few of the brands and styles available. The ThermoFin is the thickest gauge extruded aluminum. It is available in 8 foot lengths and C or U configuration. Also pictured is the RTI extrudec aluminum C.

The thin gauge double plate is a Wirsbo brand. Been some controversy concerning noise from these. Some say installation methods are the main cause. I like them for sandwich and wall heating application where the are locked in tightly.

I believe Wirsbo also offers the RTI version aluminum plate now, also.

For new construction the 8 foot long Radiant Engineering cover a lot of ground quickly and have the tighest tube fit, from my experience.

hot rod

GH

plates

Find out what you will need to push all that heat through the floor before it reaches you.Also look at what you will have for thermo storage and what radiant heat SHOULD be
with a job done right. Ask questions and remember a job
done right is a joy forever.