Heated And Cooled Concrete Floors

For concrete floor radiant heating systems the warm water tubing or electric heating elements can either be embedded within the slab on grade anywhere from the bottom of the slab to within 2 inches of the surface depending on the design and installation technique or fastened to the top of a concrete subfloor and then covered with an overlay.

Heated and cooled concrete floors.

There s two basic types of concrete floor heating hydronic and electric. The house will be well insulated and well sealed walls insulated to r 30 the roof insulated to r 60 and airtightness at 1 5 ach50. Thus a legalett heated structure requires less cooling capacity than a normal structure by shaving the peaks or reducing the effect of heat spikes. Concrete slab floors should be 100 200mm thick for the best performance while thermal mass walls should be 100 150mm thick.

Pros and cons of radiant heat. Very thick thermal mass walls and floors may take too long to heat while those that are too thin won t store enough heat. Due to it s density and low conductivity concrete retains heat very well. Radiant floor cooling technology is stillin the experimental stages in most areas but is rapidly gaining popularity in europewhere cooling needs are generally small.

The most cost effective system for medium to larger homes is hydronic since the amount of power it would take to heat a whole home with electric would be substantial. This makes the room temperature more constant during the day. Cost of radiant floor heating the cost of installing a hydronic radiant floor is approximately 4 00 to 6 00 persquare foot 40 60 per square meter. Perhaps the best way to understand how in floor heating can help to heat an entire room is to consider how most furnace based heating and cooling systems operate.

The exact amount should be calculated as part of the design process. But mackay writes that he is building in climate zone 6a where humidity ranges between 20 and 35. When an in floor heating system is the perfect solution for comfort. The legalett shallow foundation and air heated radiant floor system reduces cooling requirements by absorbing excess heat when it is being generated releasing it later.

This video shares step by step how to do a heated floor installation on concrete slab using strata heat. Whether you choose electric or hydronic radiant heat there are pros and cons. Homes built on concrete slabs are prime candidates for radiant heating systems and radiant floor cooling takes advantage of the same principle using chilled water. How does radiant heat work.

We used this system to heat porcelain tile which ge. But if you re building a new home and wish to have heated floors throughout you should consider either electric slab heating cables which can be installed directly in a concrete slab or a hydronic floor heating system.