Infloor heat

Chad

I live in NW Wisconsin and just built this summer. We have a 34'x48' house with a 26'x34' attached garage. The garage is 2x6 walls with insulation, plastic and sheetrock. The garage ceiling is not insulated yet, but i would like to put in R19 batts, it is about 11'6" high. There are 4 windows in the garage and they are double hung Anderson windows. I made sure the house and garage were as efficiant as possible without going to spray in insulation. The floors in the basement and garage don't have insulation under them. I liked the idea of the ground being a heat storage resulting in a slower cooling time. I ran PEX floor tubing throughout the house and garage and just have it sticking out or the concrete. The way it is setup it could be ran on two systems. For now I would like to just have the garage system going and connect the house system up later or tie them together. Now the ?'s.

If I go with the system for the garage and then add the house later, would it be better to make them one and have 2 seperate thermostates or two seperate systems?

What type of heating unit will I need, boiler or water heater?

If I were to have the system set up in the garage I would like it to be small and out of the way, so could I go with an on demand wall mounting water heater or should in have a boiler? (we have a 3'x3' platform at the door to the house and it is about 30" up and the tubes are under that.)

Mark Wolff

Infloor

> I live in NW Wisconsin and just built this

> summer. We have a 34'x48' house with a 26'x34'

> attached garage. The garage is 2x6 walls with

> insulation, plastic and sheetrock. The garage

> ceiling is not insulated yet, but i would like to

> put in R19 batts, it is about 11'6" high. There

> are 4 windows in the garage and they are double

> hung Anderson windows. I made sure the house and

> garage were as efficiant as possible without

> going to spray in insulation. The floors in the

> basement and garage don't have insulation under

> them. I liked the idea of the ground being a

> heat storage resulting in a slower cooling time.

> I ran PEX floor tubing throughout the house and

> garage and just have it sticking out or the

> concrete. The way it is setup it could be ran on

> two systems. For now I would like to just have

> the garage system going and connect the house

> system up later or tie them together. Now the

> ?'s. If I go with the system for the garage

> and then add the house later, would it be better

> to make them one and have 2 seperate thermostates

> or two seperate systems? What type of heating

> unit will I need, boiler or water heater? If

> I were to have the system set up in the garage I

> would like it to be small and out of the way, so

> could I go with an on demand wall mounting water

> heater or should in have a boiler? (we have a

> 3'x3' platform at the door to the house and it is

> about 30" up and the tubes are under that.)



You seem to be pretty handy, but you should have consulted some heating specialists before now. The lack of insulation under your slab does not allow the earth to act as a free heat collector; it sucks all the heat out of the slab downward and away from your house. This mistake will cost you at least 35% possibly as much as 60% in more heat required to heat the house and garage.

Get a pro to do some heat loss calculations based on not only your insulation and windows, but also your tubing spacing and tubing size to see what the temp. boost will need to be now.

For economy and ease of service, both radiant zones should be connected to one system. A water heater will not provide the Btu output required to heat your home and garage, especially w/no blue board under the slabs. A boiler will be needed. If you go with fuel oil, I would recommend the Burnham V83 boiler. It is at the top of its class for efficiency 86.1% and the best built boiler on the market today. It is relatively compact and will serve you well.

Check this site for a heating professional in your area now, and get some help with some of these things before you end up with more problems.

hr

Could you

use gas or Lp as a fuel choice? If so I would look into a condensing modulating boiler. Perhaps a Munchkin. This would allow you to run the garage efficiently and be adequate for the expansion.

Be nice to have seperate zones so the garage could be maintained at a lower temperature when you move into the house.

Yes a healoss calc would be a good idea. It's not too late, and in fact a more accurate calc is possible after the building is up. You get "real time" data to input!

Insulation under the entire slab would have been nice. Tell me you did the edge! By far the greatest loss is the edges. It may be possible to add this if you can dig down around your slab. In your climate 2" blue or pink foamboard would be best..

Lack of entire slab insultion will cost you recovery time and some additional downward loss. Not insurmountable however, IF you can handle that edge loss. Downward loss is directly related to the ground conductivity. Fill dirt, sandy soil, roadbase are not nearly as bad as solid rock or high conductive soils. And of course you need to keep any water from under the slab. proper grading and gutter runoff needs to be addressed.

hot rod

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