radiant floors and snow melting

Fred P

Is this always done with hot water or are there electric radiant floor options for small rooms?

Also Ive seen/heard of radiant heating outside under new concrete for snow melting. I am assuming this is an electric based system due to freezing temps????

Mark Hunt

Snow melt and radiant floors


Electric options are available for both, but water is most commonly used.

Glycol is added to snow melt systems to prevent freezing,

Quite honestly, unless electricity is REALLY cheap where you live the cost to run an electric snow melt would be ASTRONOMICAL!

Mark H

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Mark Eatherton1

Could be astronomical...

unless you ties it to solar and waste heat recovery and ground source heat pump, in which case the operating costs would be nil, but the construction costs could be astronomical:-) Somewhere in there, there's an R.O.I.

ME

Mark Hunt

Perhaps


we should take up astonomy!

That T-50 is sounding sweet!

Mark H

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Peter L in Toronto

Snow

spend 5 to -600 dollars on a snowblower, much more fun and cheaper in the long run!

Fred P

no Im not looking to do that

I was just curious on how it worked(it came up in a conversation yesterday)

Peter L in Toronto

electrical bills

my friend has electric radiant heat under his driveway, but has not used for a few years due to very high cost.
I have radiant floor heat in my kitchen, using hot water from the boiler. It is very nice, thinking of doing it in the bathroom as well. Works best under tiles

peter l

Radiant Wizard

Radiant

The answer to your question is yes it is done both ways. Hopefully you own stock in a Nuclear Power Plant so atleast you could get some pay back on the electricity you would use up.

The most common application is hot water. As for snow melt I only have one piece of advice. Make sure you use a seperated heat source. Snow melt here in NE requires at least 110 btu's per sqft. You do the math. If you don't use a seperate heat source then you end up with a boiler 10 times the size you need.