Radiant floor baseboard or staple up

Paul Pollets

The staple-up application will need to have a min of R21 (R30 preferred) within the joist bays, after the installation. A 1" to 2" airgap between the plates/PEX tubing and the insulation is often recommended...Refer to the manufacturer's guide for installation. in the crawlspace.... The staple-up application should use transfer plates, to make the system more efficient and use lower design water temperatures.

Heating an unusable space makes little sense with energy costs skyrocketing. Insulating the perimeter of the crawlspace makes sense.

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jim_59

Radiant floor baseboard or staple up

I was talking with a vendor of gasification wood furnaces and told him I was going to staple up in my existing crawlspace, so I'd have to remove existing batt insul., drill, staple etc... a bunch of work.

He said I should insulate crawl perimeter and put in a bunch of baseboards in the crawlspace and leave the batts in place.

What do yall think?

jim_59

Are you saying it's a bad idea because of the cost of fossil fuels? I plan on using the wood boiler and a virtually unlimited free supply of fuel. My question is more to the technical aspect of using baseboards to heat the crawl and leaving the batts in place?

Thanks

hr

I don't think

you want to heat through the batts to the space above, if that's how I am reading your post.

if you insulate the crawl space walls, dirt floor, and rim joist you might heat that space, but still not a great idea.

Drop the batts and install tube above them and reinstall.

Or hot water baseboard. Or a hot water coil in an exisiting furnace.

Baseboard element in joist bays has been used sucessfully in the past also.

Free heat or not you need a good distribution system.

hot rod

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Tony_23

It makes no sense

To leave the batts in place and TRY to heat a space above it with bbd in a crawlspace. That floor is insulated against heat movement, in either direction. You will use MUCH more fuel.

And, remember, free isn't free. That wood doesn't cut, split, stack, and load itself without your assistance and a fair amount of gasoline and equipment.

Personally, I'd rather relax a bit when I'm home, than be feeding a fire all the time 'cause I'm cold.

Paul Pollets

Dump Zone

Perhaps the crawlspace should be the "dump zone" for the wood boiler??

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Ron Schroeder_3

no such thing as free

There is no such thing as free. Not fuel, not wood, not lunch. You just get to choose who you give the money to.

Wood needs to be fired in an appropriate appliance. The fuel doesn't come in in a pipe. You eed a saw, a maul, a truck. Then you need a brush, a shovel, a vacuum to clean the thing. Even if your time is worthless, you need a lot of that.

Warm water heating uses water temperatures that are much lower than the temperatures that a wood fire achieves. If you run cool water through the boiler, indoor or outdoor, you run the risk of condensing the applaince and in turn creating creosote and/or damaging the boiler.

If your fire boiler temperature water through your crawlspace mounted baseboards you will eventually overheat the crawlspace and in turn the home. Lousy comfort and an unhappy wife are the result of that scenario. There is no amount of free that will pay that off.

I vote with Paul, staple up, reflective plates, back insulation, low supply tempertures...

jim_59

That was my thought too on the batts, if they insulate one way they will insulate the other too.

I think the way to handle the low return temps is to use one of the methods in Dan's book.

Thanks for the responses, I appreciate other perspectives.

Unknown

The Romans did that, but they didn't insulate between the warm air and the floor.

That would be quite silly. You'd have an absolutely sweltering crawlspace for relatively little output above. That's more than silly, that's ridiculous, and I can't believe anyone even loosely affiliated with a heating industry would suggest such a thing. The temperature differential you'd need to drive enough heat through an R13 or R19 into a living space at 70 degrees or even 60 degrees... I shudder.

You are looking at either finishing the crawlspace off very well (I couldn't tell you how with moisture issues and such, but vapor barriers and floor insulation will come into play) and removing the batts, or doing staple up and putting the batts back in.

jim_59

Well, I actually do believe I will have to remove the batts and staple up... just wanted to see what you guys thought. Now if I do remove batts and staple I've seen this site http://www.radiantdesigninstitute.com/page17.html where they don't reinstall the batts they just use fdbf like this http://www.radiantdesigninstitute.com/page16.html.

Obviously I'm looking to minimize the work of installation. Has anyone tried this method or have an opinion.. haha.

Thanks

Unknown

As a matter of fact, I do.

ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) has found that, installed under floors, reflective insulation can lose 50% of its effectiveness in 1-5 years from dust accumulation.

For that reason, we advise all of our clients not to waste their money, and instead invest it in something with real R-value, not "R-value equivalence".

Reflective insulation is for downward facing or sidewall applications only, IMHO.

jim_59

So Rob, When you say reinstall the batts do you not recommend even using foil faced batts and have them face upwards or just plain old unfaced? I've heard about the dust accumulation but I thought that was in the attic when laying the barrier on the floor of the attic, hence some people recommend stapling the fdbf to the underside of the rafters to minimize dust accumulation.

Unknown

I just rechecked, you're right, it was on top of the floor. So that slows down dust accumulation... maybe

We don't care about foil. It works at first; we want stuff that will work for a looong time. Fiberglass isn't very good. Foam products, denim batts, rigid foam... lots of effective, long term options out there.

jim_59

Do you cut the styrofoam to fit the bays or attach to the bottom of the joists?

Unknown

Polystyrene, usually, cut to fit and sealed with spray foam, up in the joists near the heat. If the crawlspace itself is insulated though, on second thought, fiberglass would probably be fine if you can stand working with the stuff. I was thinking very cold crawlspace there.. fiberglass loses effectiveness at cold temps, and it's not good at stopping air movement.

Make sure you seal the ends of the joist bays too!!

jim_59

Have you ever had issues w/moisture on the insulation? Are you in a climate with a lot of cooling demand and high humidity? I'm in western KY and it can get pretty sticky here so I'm concerned about anything which is not proven in this area. Everybody looks at me like I've got two heads when I mention radaint floor around here so I can't find much info here locally.

Unknown

I'll have to leave that to someone who knows vapor barrier requirements better than I do.

RoosterBoy

Jim,*~/:)

i think that high humidity wont be overcome with out proper ventilation. There are designes that use vapor barriers and insulation that may not work well for you in your area.... every type of building material has its own minor technicalities ,different building practices have developed to meet the needs of contractors and home builders ,your state of Kentucky may have building standards regarding the use of various assemblies to insulate and ventilate the space. they likely have options and or methods that have been found to work satisfactorily.

Baically good practise is good practise no matter where you are .that is what is being conveyed ,for the most part any of us would determine what the space is to be used for,then what the ventilation insulation and heating requirements for that type of area would be.... and how much heat loss it would be. for the most part we are unhappily energy conscious to a fault...we hate to see BTU's wasted ,to not insulate the perimiter of that crawl space and place a vapor retarder on the ground sealed to the wall as a perscription to reactive designe basically goes against the grain. baseboard or heat convectors can heat the area maybe even drive some moisture out thru the building wall and floor assemblies ,however, ventilation like erv's for example.... would Direct that moisture out of the building envelope tru a specific path. we like that idea as it seems that then you would have some control of Where that moisture and heat leave your home./verses say pumping the moisture into the walls. that is quite often the way "Moisture" gets into insulation...

if i lived in kentucky,and i was the first guy to ever lay in some radiant heating in the floor,i would take it on as a kinda scientific experiment.i would search out what sounded like it made sence,write down what i intended to do,get the tools and materials together,bolt it up,take some measurements of the variables in my experiment and see if they met my needs and expectations . i would set some goals for myself and set an alternative goal or two that i Knew could be accomplished along the way( just to give myself something to shoot for.) like it says dont let your light shine under a bushel so that means the next thing would be to share those ideas and findings with others who might want to do something similar to thier homes.... i think bouncing your ideas off the wall is a great way to get the first part of the deal together.. now you have some answers to things that you didnt even consider,+ more of an understanding of a variety of related issues and ideas. i hope something of what was said made some sence in your formation of a plan.