radiant surfaces

jerry scharf_2

With the recent talk about radiant ceilings, I got some pictures together.

Well, I'm almost done with the radiant surface part of the lab I am going to live in. Given the idea of a lab, it seems smart to put several different types of radiant in the house. 4 of the 5 types are in now: warmboard floor, thermofin floor, thermofin wall and thermofin ceiling. I am working out the final details on the exposed radiant ceiling panels.

Part of the premise was to use more radiation capacity and tight thermal coupling to keep the water temperatures as low as possible. With the condensing boiler, returns above ambient are lost efficiency. :)

The first picture is warmboard on the first flor section. This is on TJIs with closed cell foam sprayed to the bottom. The second picture is some thermofin U on sleepers on top of plywood. The third picture is a thermofin U wall radiant secion. The last picture is of a ceiling radiant section. All have insulation to direct the heat. the ceiling insualtion is not the building envelope, there is foam sprayed to the roof deck for that.

Each of these is installed to address a specific challenge in trying to get "ideal" heating. With the low target water temperatures (trying to keep the supply water at or below 100F), the radiation capabilities and controls will get a good challenge.

jerry

jerry scharf_2

some other entertaining pictures

First is the foam going onto 60 year old walls. From no insulation to continuous R20 in a few seconds.

The second is preparing the sleepers for the way I wanted to install the tfin. I wanted the transfer plate against the finished floor for the minimal thermal resistance into the room. The third picture is of the sleepers and fin in place and about to get tubing and stapled down. The 15 gauge stapler goes through the fin, sleeper plywood and subfloor like nothing.

The auto body air hammer is nice on the floors, but just about mandatory on the walls and ceiling panels. The fin is stapled onto the crossmembers, and the whole unit is nailed into place. A strait edge is held across two framing members, the fin is pushed flush and the crossmember is nailed in. Then the tube is put into the tfin in place, which means there's no backing other than my hand as it is hammered in. The 17' ceiling in the entry area was the most fun.

jerry

hr

Picture perfect install

you are using all the "right stuff" in my opinion. A good mix of the best emitters out there.

Be sure to allow plenty of hole size aroung the pex where you drill through studs, etc. Seems to be the most common "noise creator" especially with tube that has EVOH barriers on the outside.

Hard to fix after the coverings have gone down, or up

Pump away my friend.

hot rod

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Mark Eatherton1

Looks quite...

Siegenthalerish! Great job Jerry. I'll be interested in seeing how you control it. I suspect there are TRV's in your future. That or a continuous circ with reset.

Here's Siggys contributions on the subject.

http://www.pmmag.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,2379,143490,00.html

ME