Max floor temp with wood and radiant

Steve Garson

I understand the 85 degree upper limit for wood floors with radiant. My wood floor temp under the throw-rugs is 83 degrees, but the exposed floors are 72 degrees. With this cold spell (zero degrees), I can't get the room above 66 degrees. While I have supplemental heat available, am I at the point where I should not elevate the water temperature any further? The tile floors are toasty!

Al Letellier

heat pooling

The heat is building up under rugs etc. because it doesn't disapate as easily when the pump is not running. We always try to use constant circulation when a lot of throw rugs are used. It evens out the heat over the floor and works a lot better at heating the space. You may have some control work to do to make this happen.

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Unknown

what kind of wood floors?

If he's not up to room temp, that pump should be running constantly. I would suggest his throw rugs are fairly thick and are insulating enough that constant circulation wouldn't solve his problem.

Sounds like it's time to turn on the supplemental, or ditch the throw rugs. You certainly have the output capacity available from a floor surface temp perspective. If this is a floating floor I would run it a bit harder, but if it's nail down you wouldn't want a nice throw rug size patch of the flooring to gap/cup noticeably more than the rest of the floor.

Maybe you could replace the throws with something lighter?

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hr

Rugs are merely insulation

depending on the type, thickness, and if it has a pad underneath it could be a real damper on output in that section of the floor.

Notice when a heatloss calc is done carpeted areas need a bit more temperature to overcome this r-value. Mixing carpet, even throw rugs, and hard surfaces is always a challange. Don't want to drive the temperature hotter that the hard surfaces become uncomfortable to walk on...

May have to roll up the area rug during the cold parts of the year

hot rod

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