Radiant Floor Heating in Massachusetts

[jkspup22]

I recently purchased a home in Massachusetts and am going to be re-doing the entire kitchen. The current heating system in house is forced hotwater which leaves me with a radiator in the kitchen, which takes up good cabinet space on one wall.


I wanted to check with this forum on Radiant floor heating (either hydro or electric). I was wanted a recommendation or guidance on whether or not I could remove the radiator and install floor heating and have it as my primary heat source for the room. Pros and cons of hydro versus electric. I also wanted to see if anyone has done this in the northern states where colder temps exsist.

[mrcaptainbob]

Hydronic heat...

We have hydronic heat at our house that originally was limited to baseboard radiators. I swapped out the ones for the two baths and replaced them with radiant floor heat. WOW! I wish the whole house had this! Our house is in south central Michigan. It's an old (c:1843) brick air-leaker. But those bathroom floors are toasty warm and the entire room is warm because of it, not just the area surrounding the old radiator.

[jkspup22]

Thank you for the response. I take it that based on your response you have no issues with using radiant floor heating as a primary heat source. Did you do the install yourself? Why did you choose hydro over electric?

[mrcaptainbob]

Floor heat...

The hydronic heat was already in the house when we purchased it. The baseboard heaters work quite well, but I was (am) in the process of renovating two bathrooms, one over the other. The floor of each is exposed and available for the radiant heat. I did install it myself. Most of the items are available at any big-box store. The existing system was four zones. We wanted the bathrooms to be controlled separately, so I purchased two two-way manual control valves. I went manual rather than solenoid because of ease of install and it was FAR cheaper. The two-way valves enable the system to be bypassed should the heat get too great. And unless it's REALLY cold out, that happens more often than not! The house heating now is six zones, two manual and four on thermostats.

[LazyPup]

Quote;"I also wanted to see if anyone has done this in the northern states where colder temps exist."

It really wouldn't matter whether your house is in Boston, Massachusetts or Miami,Fla. When they properly design a heating or cooling system they begin by doing a heat loss study of the structure. In the process of working up the study they have to consider every room in the house, one by one, to determine the actual BTU requirement for that particular room. If we were then designing a forced air system that information would be used to determine the size of ducts and registers required in the room. In the case of radiant heating that information is used to determine the length of baseboards, size of radiators or the overall length of the in floor radiation lines. Providing the system is designed to provide the required BTU energy the infloor radiant will work just as good as any other system.

Where you will really notice the difference is the first time you step out of a hot shower, expecting to land your wet foot on a cold tile surface and preparing for the shivers to run up your spine, but alas, that won't happen because your tender tooties will land on a nice warm tile surface and you won't want to leave the bathroom.

Taking the discussion of infloor radiant to the ultimate level. At my last home in Westfield, Massachusetts I installed PEX tubing in my sidewalks and driveway. In that manner, when we got a snow all I had to do was go down in the basement, open a valve and turn a circulator pump on to melt the snow off the driveway and walkways. Some people thought i was crazy because it required a lot of energy to melt the snow, but when you consider that they charge $50 or $60 to plow a driveway and you still have to clean the walks in the end I was probably saving money, not to mention the cost of the snowblower and the inconvenience of bundling up to go outside to keep the walks clean.