In Floor Heat In Existing Wood Floors

Plastic like pex is not a good transfer medium says richard.

In floor heat in existing wood floors.

Some manufactures would recommend that you maintain a consistent temperature ideally between 78 and 80 degrees. The type of wood flooring that you install over the radiant heat mechanism will ultimately determine your temperature guidelines. Wood stove radiant heat off your furnace is the best type of heat and keeps your floors toasty warm. The water that runs through your floor for radiant floor heat is never any warmer than 140.

Radiant heat is a method of heating the floor by using electrical wiring or heated water with the heat then transferred upward thorough the floor and into the rest of the home. It is therefore completely safe to use radiant heat with wood. Initially the heating sub was worried about efficiency due to multiple layers of wood floor in the existing sections but he re ran his heat calc s and thinks it will work well if he installs aluminum plates under the tubes to build up a small heat chamber below the floor. So if you have open access to your floor joists now you can add the comfort and efficiency of radiant floor heat to your home.

Saving you even more wood or coal. Most wood flooring can be installed over radiant heat providing all of the necessary conditions are met. Radiant floor heat is about 20 more efficient and you can keep the water temperature much lower. The simplest type of radiant heat system in frame construction involves stapling tubes to the underside of the wood subfloor between the floor joists.

Radiant heaters really do work and can warm your floor up to 85 degrees fahrenheit. The heat is made possible in two ways. Instead of blowing hot air through a vent or pumping hot water to a baseboard radiator along the wall radiant heat warms up the entire floor. Successful wood floor installations occur when the radiant heat system design engineer the radiant heating system installer the wood flooring installer and the end user all communicate and fully understand what is required for the entire flooring system being installed.

See figure 1 the wood finish floor is then nailed as usual to the wood subfloor with shorter nails if necessary to avoid puncturing the tubing. Temperature has little impact on wood floors. Either through pipes carrying hot water embedded in or directly below the floor or via electric mats in or below the floor. The retroheat system can be installed to heat tile hardwood laminates and carpeted flooring.

Only moisture can negatively impact wood and cause it to contract resulting in floor cracks. The retroheat floor heating system was designed specifically for providing electric radiant heat to existing floors by accessing the floor joists below. Now our contractor is concerned about the integrity of the wood floors. Common misconceptions radiant heat whether water based or electric does not affect wood floors.

Installing radiant floor heating in existing homes begins with aluminum tracks being screwed between the joists which hold pex cross linked polyethylene tubing carrying hot water.