How To Install a Heated Floor
No More Cold Feet: Installing a Heated Floor
Installing a Heated Floor
If your home has a lot of problems with
drafts in the winter and your heating bill is too high, you might want to
consider installing a heated floor. And, if you install a heated floor and still
want carpet (as it feels better on the feet) there is a type of carpet you
should buy. If you put the wrong carpet over a heated floor you will actually
not save on heating because the unit will have to work harder. Or, it could be
you are going to lay new ceramic tile and don’t want to walk on a cold floor
each morning.
The radiant-heated floor is a solution for
warming your house plus saving on heating costs. This type of floor has been in
European homes for quite some time. Water is heated to between 80 and 125
degrees Fahrenheit and run through tubing installed underneath the top of the
floor. A very easy structure to build is what is known as a suspended heated
floor that can be installed over the top of your existing concrete floor.
The design is simple. First of all, you
make sure you have a flat hard surface (usually your concrete foundation). What
you will do is take lumber and build a frame the shape of your room that will
suspend a sheet of plywood over rubber tubing that runs the hot water. This is
why it is called “suspended” because the top level of plywood is suspended over
the hot water tube.
Use 2 by 4-inch lumber to lay out the
frame of your suspended floor. The suspended floor will be raised about 1 and
one half inches so that the rubber tubing will rest underneath with no pressure
on top of it. The 2 by 4s are spaced out evenly and laid flat. These are called
sleepers and the rubber tubing is run up and down within each cell. The idea is
to run the tubing so that it covers the maximum amount of floor.
Once the suspended floor frame is built
and the rubber tubing run, you now have to use a substance to conduct the heat
and disperse it evenly. Simple sand spread out evenly within the suspended frame
is an excellent and inexpensive heat conductor. If you do not want to use sand
then aluminum sheeting will work too. Finally, nail plywood to the top of the
frame and then install your ceramic tiles, hardwood flooring, or carpet.
You will have to place the feeder and
return leads of the tubing where your boiler unit is. There are various vendors
who sell the units. One catalog can be found at
http://www.electromn.com/pdf/BL003.pdf. There are different boiler options.
Some even have units that heat the water through solar panels.
The other item to address is if you want
to lay carpet as the top flooring. Before you decide which type of carpet to buy
you must consider the thermal resistance/R-value of both the carpet and the
carpet pad. If your carpet has a high R-value then it will actually insulate you
on the surface from the heated tubing below. Your pump will have to work harder
to get heat to the surface.
The carpet you buy should have an R-value
between 2.0 and 4.0—preferably 2.0. Choose lower-pile carpeting and if you can
avoid the pad. If you want the pad then it should have the same of lower R-value
if possible.
Feel free to email me with your questions or comments. |
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