Our family room is on a concrete slab and is always cold. The carpet needs to be replaced, but we were thinking about putting wood/pergo something in there (we have pergo in the kitchen area - and love it). Is it possible to get this stuff heated so it isn't so damn cold through the winter? How expensive is it?

 

Don't have any first hand experience but from what I've seen there's two different kinds: Radiant and electric. The electric stuff is extremely cheap and very easy to install, but it isn't as efficient as the radiant heat. Radiant heat will require plumbing to be run under the floor and then back to a boiler or some kind of stove to heat the water/steam that will flow through it. Often you can turn on the radiant heat for a few hours and the floor will remain warm for 24-36 hours after you've shut it off. Radiant heat is very efficient.

 

I don't imagine you know where to get this stuff do you?

 

I know Home Depot sells the electric stuff. It's basically a mat you roll out beneath the floor and then connect it to 110. They also sell programable thermostats for them so you can program when you want it to come on, in the morning for instance say an hour before you normally wake up, so you don't have to walk on to a cold floor. Or an hour or so before you come home from work at night for the same reason.





300 SF of the stuff is like $200.

The radiant heat system would need to be purchased and installed by a specialty contractor.

 

Check out whether you can run radiant floor heating under a wood floor, especially a wood laminate flooring product like Pergo.

 

Yeah, might get too hot and damage the floor. Also, I don't think you'll have enough room beneath the slab and the floor to run the radiant stuff.

 

Well, I don't mind the electrical stuff at all. In fact I am all for it if it can be programmed with a thermostat. Maybe I will stop by HD tomorrow and find out how much it will cost for them to install it with the pergo.

 

You can actually run either the electric or the hydro-based under tile, wood, pergo, etc... without damaging it.

If it were my house, I would not use the electric for anything larger than a bathroom (it's extremely inefficient). If you're going to put the hydro-based radiant floor on top of a concrete slab, you will need to hire a plumber to tap into the heat pipes. The tubing is then layed in an 'S' pattern throughout the room... then a thin layer of material (not sure what it's called) is poured over the hosing and floated (just like when they did the original slab).

You then have a nice flat surface with the hosing embedded in it to lay your tile or wood. This type of heating is basically a waste if covered with carpet.

What is your primary heat source in the home now? (electric, FHA or FHW)

What type of boiler do you have?

 

^ That's assuming he doesn't have forced air already.

 

check this out:
http://www.mvsupply.biz/hydronic_hea...ource=overture

 

Sorry for my stupidity - FHA and FHW? Boiler? As in water heater?

 

Sounds like you're got a heat pump Without installing an additional gas powered boiler or wood/pellet stove to heat water for the radiant system you're stuck with electric underfloor heating.

 

I imagine it is expensive to install a gas powered boiler? Few thousand? I wonder how inefficient the electric flooring will be... it isn't a small room.

 

Read up here for radiant heat

http://www.woodfloorsonline.com/tech...oodwater7.html

 

and here:

http://www.radiantec.com/pricingcom.htm

 

Use your water heater.

 

Electric bill = $$$$$$$



Do you have natural gas?

 

Yeah, its gas.

 

FHA = Forced Hot Air .. You would have vents in your floors/walls which would blow hot or cold air (heat/air conditioning).

FHW = Forced Hot Water .. You would have a baseboard heat system. Hot water travels through pipes from the furnace, then heats up the baseboard heater (if you look into it, you will see hundreds of little metal vanes around a copper pipe which heat up and help dissipate the heat. Known for very efficient and even heat in a room.

I guess I should have said furnace rather than boiler. A water heater is very different from a furnace. I'm no plumber, just a guy who likes to work on/around the house, so I don't know if you could use the water heater as the heat source. I personally haven't heard of a water heater being used, but who knows

 

^ Absolutely If that's what you have, you're options are very limited.. as Mr Steve said.

 

Check w/the sites that sells hydronics systems, such as the one in my earlier post. Then determine if your water heater can supply the amount of hot H2O needed for heating that room.

If not, you can install an additional tankless water heater for this application (it is the best way to go for hydronic heating).
Such as this one:
http://overture.tanklesswater.com/pr...oduct=125HX-NG

And you can probably better deals on the web for those.


If you can install that yourself, it can be much less than $2000 total, not including your floor.

To bad you don't live in my area.

 

We just replaced out water heater last year. We wanted a tankless one.

Thanks for the info, I willl look into these over the next couple days.

 

Well then that's good. Won't be too hard to add either a tankless hotwater heater outside your home or a small gas powered hotwater heater in the basement to use for the radiant heat.

 

You can install those tankless water heater inside or outside.

IMO, stay inside of the house and vent it outside just like a normal water heater.

 

Thanks for the tip

 

Ahh ok. FHA