Ultr-Fin system(good/bad?)

newtoboilers

This seems to be a third catagory of 'below floor' type of radiant system (in-slab and stapple-up being the other two) and I was wondering if anyone had any comments about this method. The company that manufactures these fins have a lot of claims that suggest this is better than the 'stapple-up' method.

Weezbo

it sounds like salesman hype.

27% bettern What? 42% Bacon dip! nah you better do your homework ...and really thats pretty good advise to me too. the usefulness of the product is based more on who buys it verses who dont. i can see it hanging up there draped about the red iron webing to further the maintinace tech's aerodynamic display with the building owner looking on going WoW! where did all that extra tubing come from?!forgive me maybe its bettern staple up with plates...after all arent you supposed to run 180 degree water thru the stuff? and the more heat you pump into pex the longer the pipe gets...right? so you can use the extra pipe bought on from thermal expansion cooefficents to save material ...right? i think it looks interesting and may possibly meet some peoples needs .although i am not reccommending any of it at this momment.

Bob Forand

I am not a believer due to three major issues with Ultrafin.The first being water temperature. One point to radiant heat is to bring water temps down creating warm floor. The second issue is you drill holes across the bays,that is a lot of holes to be drilled. And the third is you have to put three rivets in each 10" section. If you are going to go through all of that why not put baseboard element into the bay... I hope this helps...Good luck.

Constantin

Hmmmm....

The question I always ask myself when I see hype like that is: Would my Physics professor concur?

In other words, does it make sense to heat up water, throw it through a water/air HX, then make the air HX with the above subfloor, then have the heat transfer to the finished floor above vs. throwing the water through a HX that interacts directly with the subfloor?

For me, the only place where the Ultra-Fin system has a place is a subfloor that is too uneven to accept excellent heat tranfer plates like the Thermofin plates from Radiant Engineering. I have seen many a Wallie be willing to grind off all protuding nails, etc. to get a subfloor to be flat because they believe in the Thermofin product.

Also consider the usage of the Thermofin product line in applications above the sub-floor.