I am in the beginning stages of building our cabin and I need some advice. Is radiant heat a good source for primary heating or is it just supplemental heating? Which radiant heating has better performance, the hydronic or the electric matts under ceramic tile?
Thanks and sorry for all the questions
Mark
I don't know a lot about it but I do know many of my German friends have it as sole/principle heating means. Circulating water. Pumps and tanks in equipment room. I believe electricity was the fuel ... but I'm not sure about this. Very comfortable. Of course, their homes are well built and insulated well.
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#1: I am in the beginning stages of building our cabin and I need some advice.
#2: Is radiant heat a good source for primary heating or is it just supplemental heating?
#3: Which radiant heating has better performance, the hydronic or the electric matts under ceramic tile?
#4: Thanks and sorry for all the questions
#1: Planning is good , and this is the right place and time for that.
#2: It's great source of heat for a full time house and if designed properly is a stand alone heat source.
A) For a cabin / weekend / vacation place it would be a poor choice , unless your willing or able to heat it all the time so it will be the right temp for your visits.
Radiant heat works on heat a mass , it is not a turn up the heat it gets warm quick heat , like forced air or elect. heaters . I also is slow at cooling down , so for a cabin it would be a very costly form of heat.
#3: Depends on factors in your area specific to cost of fuel.
#4: No worries mate! That's what the site is for.
I have radiant heat in my full time log home and love it. The water is heated by 4 2500 watt elements in a small stainless steel tank. We can generally heat the house with 90 deg F water. But as mentioned in another post,its a slow steady heat and it would take it a long time to heat a building from below freezing to 70 deg.
My floor 2500' of PEX tubing embedded in 25,000 pounds of 1 1/2" thick light weight concrete on top of a I-Joist supported floor. For those times when we want more heat fast, we have 2 gas fireplaces.
Jerry
In my neck of the woods it has really caught on especially in slab housing garages and shops. The pipe is run under the concrete usually with an insulation board on the ground then the pipe and then the concrete. Although the majority of the systems utilizes a outside wood furnace as wood is abundant. Cheap heat until your back goes out from cutting, splitting and loading the stove.
I think now they make a small boiler system (propane or electric) to take over for periods that you are gone from home. When I had mine I had to fire it twice daily. Electric was only $25 month as the hot water (domestic) was heated also.
TheWire,
Your system sounds like one I'm installing ... in a much smaller weekend cabin. The 1 1/2" joist-supported concrete floor already is poured with PEX included. I expected to use tightly controlled (85-90 degree limited) water so that a plastic tank could be used. The controls are to set up to prevent any sudden change in temperatures of the concrete ... the pump is to run periodically all during the heating season ... keeping the tank and floor in synch. The pump runs continously during heating events.
When we're away, the system begins warming at 45 deg just to prevent freezing. We have a dial-up control system that moves the water set point to 65 deg when we are planning to come up to the cabin. (We "dial-up" a neighbor who lives nearby year-round ... he sends over a kid who throws switch for us! LOL!)
Maybe I'll get this thing finished one day.
Did you engineer your own system? ... or was it commercially avail?
I read about using a hot water heater in MEN magazine...
here's the link
http://www.radiantec.com/faq/faq04.php#2a (http://www.radiantec.com/faq/faq04.php#2a)
http://www.radiantec.com/index.php (http://www.radiantec.com/index.php)
I know this guy personally and a call to David would answer any questions.
http://www.cozyheat.net/pex.htm (http://www.cozyheat.net/pex.htm)
http://www.cozyheat.net/index.htm (http://www.cozyheat.net/index.htm)
Radiant heat is both a technical term and a marketing term.
Sunlight warms us with radiant heat - heat that travels by radiation of energy across space, not by heating air. Convection is the other method of moving heat - first by heating air and then the air warms the person or object.
In the real world it is likely your heat is delivered by some combination of both.
A wood stove is both a radiant heater - you feel the heat when you hold out your hands, and a convection heater - warm air is rising around the stove.
When heating systems are marketed as radiant they usually have a design where a large area is heated to a not-so-high temperature and this area transfers most of its heat by radiating to cooler objects. The advantage of radiant is that you can feel warm without having the air temperature as high as with a forced air convection heater, there is no blower noise, no scorced air smell, and, if you have a large radiant area like a heated floor slab, the temperature is quite even in all parts of the room.
The disadvantage is that this large area has be brought up to temperature (slower response to changes), and the cost of radiant systems are usually higher.