I completely agree. Heating bills weren't the arm-waving promise of $20 per month, they were not $200. The large patio is under a covered porch. Thanks again! Is this a "good" operating scheme or would it be better to run the boiler constantly for two 2.5 hour intervals during the day, and increasing the water temperature water so the boiler is operating continuously? there could be water coming up through the slab from water below-it. InspectAPedia tolerates no conflicts of interest. I have had 2-3 different servicemen come and check the settings as well as calling the company and have them talk me through the settings but still not working properly. Simply add panels and connect manifolds, all other calculations are based on preset preferences and the load calculation from your floorplan. :-). Our photos above and below wer made possible by breaking into the floor slab with a jackhammer, removing concrete to expose the exact details of how and where the radiant heat tubing was installed in this floor - shown below. With radiant tubing at those depths, the concrete begins to offer not just a lag time in heating (Mr. The existing loops really do seem to be fine -- a sample of water was drawn for a repeat test of concentration for the X100 anti-corrosion agent, and the water was clean and clear.
The effects of putting the tubing deep into the slab created a problem of heat transfer losses to the ground, not just a matter of longer response time to warm the building. Arguing: in very cold climates putting heat under a kitchen base cabinet were plumbing enters and drains exit might help prevent a freeze problem. It'd be appropriate IF the thermostat was turning OFF the heat - thus thinking that you're warm enough. was installed to pump heated water through the radiant tubing in the concrete floor. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
James Darling, 
DJ - outdoor temperature We are in the steel building business so we have a lot of in floor heat done. Although the current installation practice in Montana does not extend the interior footing insulation to the top of the slab, based on empirical data, this study concludes that irrespective of the insulation installation configuration, Montana buildings will save energy by insulating the slab edge with R-10 insulation to a depth of 4 ft. It has been a long drawn out battle to try and get the plumber to come, and the plumbers next solution was to shut the system off and pretend it was never there with no refund of our money. Please feel free to call us at 866-341-1854 or email us at sales@ecowarmradiantheat.com for assistance in completing your project questionnaire. Might they wonder if we didn't know any better? The system is one zone and serves the entire house (~1400 square feet) and the insulated 4-car garage. whose construction details, methods, materials were unusually well documented as a project. Radiant heating system design or installation mistakes that must be avoided. Scroll below and click on loop and board drawings to see them in a bigger view. All Rights Reserved. layout tubing common radiant floor manifold typical heating heat pex radiant floor manifold slab layout tubing tube heat cement heating parchment typical pca squares embossing templates pattern install lines Pumping faster, with some subtle technical exceptions, puts more BTUs per minute into the floor; Have considered not running the system at all in the winter as the area it heats is not used that much. [4]. In any case you'd have to chop entirely through the floor slab to get to the tubing below, and meanwhile you are paying in higher heating bills than necessary over the life of the building. I am hoping that the new plumber will be able to troubleshoot and try and figure out possible causes of why the system won't heat the slab. The energy is lost before it has a chance to heat the slab and when the system loses too much energy the time it takes the tank to reheat the coil all is lost and the system starts from square one again, and this constantly repeats itself, and the system essentially continuously chases it's tail. In the slab in our construction project, the critical Thermostat is set at 17C .. tubing, leaving the heating boiler, was placed more than 12" deep in poured concrete. Our plumber wants to more the thermostat because he feels that the fish tank that is about 4 feet away may be pushing heat into the thermostat, confusing it. We estimate maybe 168 degrees water temperature would be needed at 4" down and The only time that it will heat up the floor is when the outside temp is warmer outside. The design will be completed by Monterey Energy Group who has designed over 400 radiant systems per year for the past 22 years. Insist that radiant heating in a poured concrete slab have these attributes: Radiant heat tubing in a concrete slab needs to be closer to the top of the slab than its bottom, normally in the top 2-inches of concrete. plan). So the insulation, air tightness, materials, heating details were known. baseboard Drag-and-drop radiant panels to your rooms in Right-Draw. Try the search box just below, or if you prefer, post a question or comment in the Comments box below and we will respond promptly. For an overall view of this process visit HOW TO BUY. All loops share a small boiler circulator that moves water through the boiler loop, but each other setup has it's own in-line pumps. hydronic underfloor vidalondon wiring With 6" of sand and say nominally 6" of concrete, your tubing is 12" down - way too deep, and furthermore, the first 6" of material (sand) between the tubing and the occupied space, does not quite the same level of thermal conductivity as tubing in contact with solid concrete. Generate an exact piping layout diagram from manifold to loops, complete with an accurate bill of materials. pex radiant Should my pad be running hotter if water going through it is 110-120 as the boiler says it is .. Right-Radiant is an easy-to-use and complete radiant design program with snow melt capabilities developed in partnership with a consortium of radiant panel manufacturers. 12 years later and we installed a ground heat pump system that would eliminate oil from our property and save us $$. Check the temperatures entering the floor loop and then returning out of it; you might see that there is a bigger drop than anticipated, hinting at heat loss into the ground at a rate not anticipated. I think we're finally done! The nonsensical view that one can heat up the soil below an building slab on grade and that the soil would magically stay warm forever was put to the test experts when the author was five years old and the contractor was not even a gleam in his daddy's eye. Hubby did lots of research on the in floor heat based on size of area for how many lines needed. Is it possible that insulation was missed. In ALL cases we want the insulation in place. radiant floor heating cooling heat solar hybrid energy system geo concrete geothermal water insulation thermal floors rigid heated mode para Eagle River, WI commented on this article that the contractor's promise of heating the building for $20. I ask because there could certainly have been high moisture in the concrete itself, now being driven out by heat from the tubing, Right-Radiant, like most other Right-Suite Universal products, has the ability to save common properties within the preferences library to use for future projects. Placing concrete atop radiant floor PEX tubing stapled to the foam-board insulation might work IF. with foam insulation under the slab. I have had an energy audit done and it was suggested that the tubing initially installed for the oil furnace is the incorrect size for the heat pump. The house is *evenly* warm now. well over 200 deg heating water would be needed in tubing 6" down. When weather is colder, John, you would expect to see the boiler on for a longer interval; we never ever could get the indoor temperature above 59 to 60 F. referred to that work, but because the original testing was in warmer conditions (outside temperature had not been below 35F. "The T-KJr model (gas inputs up to 140,000 BTU per hour) is the smallest unit in the Takagi line-up. Stunning heating bills arrived, exceeding We also sometimes find water coming up through a slab from inadequate site or slab drainage at time of installation or later if roof or surface runoff are not directed away from the building. Ask your heating service tech to take a look and let me know what you are told. proper insulation around the slab perimeter with a frost wall before the floor was poured (he insisted on a floating slab with no inside-perimeter insulation In fact the tubing was stapled directly to the surface of the styrofoam insulation. In 2020, observing water leaking up through the slab in this location from below, the floor was opened to permit further investigation. In this egregious error, even worse than putting radiant heat tubing too deep in the slab, insulation was simply omitted where the floating-slab monolithic footings were poured. - presence or absence of a domestic hot water tankless coil on the boiler The fact that your radiant floor heat worked properly at one time suggests that (barring something odd like a rising water table) the concerns of a innate design or installation errors such as tubing too deep or insulation left out are pretty much squashed. This placed the tubing at varying depths but generally about 7-inches below the finished floor surface, with tubing at some locations near the slab perimeter placed 18-inches deep in the slab! tubing "These results indicate that tube depth does have a nontrivial effect on the thermal performance of a heated floor slab. radiant heating heat floor hiding mechanical components photowall to make the (many) mistakes this one did. Thin film radiant heat systems, other electric radiant heat floor systems as well as hydronic or hot water radiant heat flooring systems are described on this page and at the RECOMMENDED READING links at the end of this article. per month. When future archeologists dig up the ruins of our buildings several centuries from now, will they ponder why we put the heating tubing at the bottom of the slab? The tubing materials themselves, either copper or PEX or something similar, do not absorb, hold, nor give off moisture. I am just worried that the the plumber that I am bringing in won't be able to figure anything out for us, in which we will be left with a very expensive system that just won't work. Each project receives a board layout for accuracy and ease of installation. All Rights Reserved. The floor slab and radiant heat tubing had been placed by the contractor while we were unable to attend the jobsite. Thank you again for your help and patience. The building was super insulated, tiny, airtight, with double-glazing throughout, leading to an expected low heating cost. The deeper you put radiant heating tubing in the slab the worse the heating system will perform in delivering heat to the interior. Another theory I have read is that the heat as it goes down, which it will, some is that it radiates horizontally, which makes insulating the edge quite well. Wendell, there is not actually any contradiction between the Montana (DOE) research you cite above and radiant heat floor slab insulation requirements. The old unit was leading edge in 1952, the new unit is leading edge now. The problem with very deep radiant-heat tubing, combined with incomplete insulation, is that even with just 12 to 18" of concrete above the tubing, heat flowed enough into the ground below the building that, even with the thermostat set to maximum, and running heat continuously for a week solid, in moderately cold weather (in the 40's in Northern Minnesota where in winter it can drop to 20 deg F below zero). The fallacious concept held by the contractor in our horror story was that "once you heat up the earth below your building it will start "giving back" heat to the building and you'll be just fine. The risk in misinterpreting the Montana studyconclusions above would be to apply them generally to radiant heat floor designs and that to improperly infer that complete under-radiant-heat-floor-slab insulation is not needed in cold climates. No zoning, it was all one zone. My point is that drilling one inspection hole in a radiant heated floor to examine the insulation scheme and tubing depth, even if you could avoid cutting tubing, wouldn't assure you that there wasn't a problem elsewhre under the floor. If water temperature in is 15 degrees lower then water temp out And it cycles in the high limit switch of the boiler until the thermostat settings are met .. is this ok ? Normally you would not bother to run radiant heat under cabinets and IMO even more important, not under a refrigerator, but if it does run there it's not a catastrophe. Click Here for more info. Anyway the plumber is coming in a few days so we shall see. Any advice or thoughts? Copyright 2022 Wrightsoft Corporation. I agree that if there is enough insulation under the slab and it's well done and complete, in the design (foam, tubing, sand, concrete) you describe you will eventually probably warm the slab upper surface, but consider that there are heat flow rates through insulation too, it's not "heat proof". Thank you for your help. The following un-edited discussions, a continuation of RADIANT HEAT MISTAKES, illustrates efforts to track down the reason that a radiant-heat slab system is not heating adequately. - setting of temperature for the floor loops floor radiant heating system insulation valves tubing manifolds boilers sensors temp handle supplies build sell Weil-Mclain Ultra 230 Condensing. slab grade radiant multiple manifolds floor heating schematic manifold connecting Quoting from the conclusions of the Montana DOE-sponsored study you cite, [2] [photo at left showing interior foundation insulation before the slab is poured, U.S. DOE, op cit.]. Steve I cant assess whether or not the amount if tubing is sufficient. Either figure out why the in floor heating is not efficient or perhaps not hooked up properly or that the building needs to be insulated etc. In the article above I document what happens in a cold climate if the insulation is incomplete or the tubing too deep in the slab. Customizable parameters for each panel and loop. Possibly, Yes, Janine, depending on Complete Radiant Heat Mechanical Design Service.
Start by asking for guidance from an **experienced** radiant heat floor installer in your area. ThermoSoft, Corporate Headquarters A diagram of the system will be helpful in the future as well, should a need arise to repair the system and to avoid damage during overall residence remodeling or renovation. The energy savings vary slightly depending on the insulation configuration and building type. Inside is a little harder to insulate because of constant welding, grinding etc. We saw this in astronomical heating bills and a cold building interior in the Minnesota home discussed above. with the experienced heating people we use, have had no problems. But I suspect this may be a case of intelligent people who think things up on their own, make up an explanation that sounds reasonable, but may not know the whole story. Photographs of the slab and radiant tubing installation for the cabin show that the guidelines for radiant heat slab installations were not followed. Worked well enough. Thinking back to how ancient Romans used lead piping for water supplies, perhaps those archeologists will conclude that even after centuries of experience, we still had a hard time doing this pipe thing right. Is it possible that the radiant heating tubes give off moisture/ condinsation which causes the bluestone to absorb the moisture. Heating energy costs will increase consistent with the increase in heating water operating temperature requirements. If you turn on and run up the heat the image will show hot and cold spots that might tell us that the layout was insufficient, the loops mis-run, that there's been a leak, or that there are sections that look uninsulated; a thermography scan of the building exterior can give similar information around the floor perimeter. Worst of all, the contractor also pushed the radiant heat tubing so deep into the concrete (ranging from 7" deep to more than 18" deep) that thank you for your rapid response. As our reference document(s) below show by calculation and model, ultimately, the heat flow into the ground for tubing really too deep in the slab can be significant, even if there is insulation below all or part of the slab. heating manifold radiant floor system hydronic manifolds camera loops projects start emissivity builditsolar utility ircamera experimental The installing contractor decided on his own to skip the frost footings specified for this slab, instead building a "floating slab" that was simply set atop the ground. Is there any other problems that we could try to troubleshoot? A radiant floor slab heating system will, if improperly designed, keep pumping heat into the ground as long as the heat is turned on. There is no doubt that in virtually every radiant-heat-floor-slab design we need continuous insulation under the slab and at slab perimeter, though the appropriate insulation amount might vary depending on the local climate. I will be heating with a boiler system with a separate hot water tank for household use. We couldn't see those details without destructive chopping up of the concrete or finding photos taken during construction. Do you install radiant heat pex under refrigerator and kitchen cabinets? When I use a temp gun to check the pad its running at about 23- 25 degrees C (73 -77f) When we first got the system it only worked for a few short months in the winter, but it did work at one time. The R-value of concrete is roughly .08/inch (US DOE). info@thermosoft.com Website: https://www.thermosoft.com/docs/tt_install_guide.pdf This company has offices in Canada, Chile, the U.S., Germany, Russia, the UK, Slovakia, and Japan. Had a hard time meeting thermostat needs in cold weather like -25 and lower etc. This system is *smart*! FREE FedEx Ground shipping on all orders over $99.00. Here are examples of electric radiant heat flooring systems. Michael Melissa said: tubing Literally. I appreciate the Montana reference and have added it to this article below at references [2]. But in the horrible installation we describe in these articles, the contractor not only provided incomplete and no perimeter slab insulation, he also buried the tubing so deep in the concrete that heat moved much more down into the cold earth than upwards into the occupied space. Our photo above on this page [Image file] shows that tubing was in some sections more than 18" deep, and adjacent to a large area where sub-slab insulation was simply omitted by the contractor. Yes individual circuits or loops can clog, particularly if they were run as separate loops off of a main. We would never have found which sections of insulation were omitted if we haven't had the photos. We have a block building with poured walls that we placed in floor heating. radiant manifold watts schematic heating floor
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