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Thinking of retrofitting 45 year old house with radiant heat and OWB

Started by monkeyratmom, February 19, 2009, 10:43:31 AM

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monkeyratmom

I am researching options for replacing our heating systems within the next year or so (money issues, of course).  We currently have two very old heat pumps heating our 2688 sf brick ranch.  The house is 92 feet long so one heats bedroom half, other heats LR, DR, den, Kit.  We also have a wood stove which I use as much as possible to keep heat pumps from running.  We have a box fan hanging in the doorway from the den to the bedroom hallway to blow the warm air which we have to duck under which is not so fun for hubby who is over 6 ft tall, but that is the only way to heat the whole house with the wood stove LOL.

I have pretty much decided that I want to retrofit radiant floor heating, which I can do myself as we have an easily accessible crawl space, I just am a little worried because I don't want to be suckered into buying the wrong stuff or paying too much, but I've just begun to research that and there seems to be pretty good info out there on the web.

I have been seriously considered the E-Classic 2300, because of the low emissions.  There are no regs here for emissions, but I want to be a good citizen.  However, reading some of the posts about the 2300 and other CB models, it may be too finicky for where we live, and we might be better off with a 6048 or such.  We are in central North Carolina, and it doesn't always get so cold in the winter, and I really don't want something we have to nursemaid.

We are definitely going to get a dual-fuel because of the peace of mind if sometimes we can't make it to the wood pile, and we are going to also heat our hot water with it.  Does anybody use their OWB year-round for that reason and how did it work out for you?  We will have to use propane because we are out in the country.

We have pretty much unlimited free wood, just have to cut it up and stack it.
Home Security telemarketer:  Hi, we are offering free installation in your area through the end of the month, and we would . . .
Me, interrupting:  We have dogs and guns, we're good.

bandmiller2

First I would leave your current heating system intact and runnable as a back up.Radiant floor heat is the cats pooper,but if the water going through it is too hot its uncomfortable.What I did was to run the water from the furnace through considerable base board units before going through the floor pex to drop the temp could also be done with mixing valves.If you have black tar paper between the floor and subfloor don't use radiant ,it will stink.The sheet metal plates that you staple to hold up the pex are quite expensive.I made a die for a small press brake and used roll flashing and made my own.Read alot its an enjoyable project that will pay you back manyfold.Frank C.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

thecfarm

I have a Heatmor.I put out more emissions with my 2-3 brush fires I have a year than this OWB puts out,I feel.Not much cleaning this kind.The only thing I have to keep clean is where the blowers are,once a year or when they get blocked up.Auger the ashes out once a week and good to go.I did use it to heat the hot water last year.Make sure you put a few valves in to shut of the lines so it don't run through your lines and heat the house up.I don't think a person would save much money if you are using it to heat the water in the summer months,if you are buying wood.But a person needs to try it to see for themselves.But with a big family.it might be worth it.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

monkeyratmom

Actually we can't keep any of the old stuff.  The heat pumps, air handlers and duct work are at the end of their usefulness, plus I hate forced air because we have allergies.  I am really looking forward to filling in all the floor and wall vents.  This house originally had oil heat that was vented through the walls, then when the heat pumps were installed they ran all new (at the time) ducting through the floors.  We have kids and pets and the floor vents just collect all kinds of yuck.

I am not very strong but very persistent and patient, do you think I can manage the radiant install okay?  I'm short so actually I have an advantage in the crawl space over my husband, who is totally not handy and is only allowed to hold stuff for me when I work  :D

There is nothing under there but subfloor and insulation, we have hardwood, tile, and vinyl throughout.  House was built in 1964.  I don't even think our county had building codes back then, but we were lucky and my grandpa had a good builder.  We love our house and will be here until we are carted out feet first.

Can you give me more info about making your own plates?  Maybe some pics of the die and press brake?
Home Security telemarketer:  Hi, we are offering free installation in your area through the end of the month, and we would . . .
Me, interrupting:  We have dogs and guns, we're good.

beenthere

monkeyratmom
Welcome to the forum.
Have you considered hot water baseboard heat runs (like the SlantFin) and run pex to each, with two or three pumps on thermostats in different locations? Seems it would be much easier to install and would keep the heat in the room, and not in the crawl space. Where extra room heat is needed, the finned tubing can be installed between the joists.
I've had it for 40 years, and the house is very comfortable and very even heat. Low humidity is not as much problem as it is with forced air.
Just a thought, and what I would do.  :)
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

monkeyratmom

I have thought about it and it is not my first choice.  I know it doesn't take up much space but I don't like to give up even a few inches in our den or kitchen which are long and narrow, and I've never really like the way it looked.  Of course, if the credit crunch means we can't get a decent home equity loan, we'll have to make some hard choices, which is why I joined here to get different opinions and such, and to have options lined up when the time comes.
Home Security telemarketer:  Hi, we are offering free installation in your area through the end of the month, and we would . . .
Me, interrupting:  We have dogs and guns, we're good.

Polly

omish friend of mine uses hot water heat outside wood furnace hot water piping under the floor and solar panels on roof to supply power to the water circulation pump pretty neat set up  ::) ::) :)

logwalker

I think you need to get under the house and do some real serious investigation to see how feasible this idea is. The pex pipe runs have to be 8" to 12" apart to have a decent recovery period. As in after you have been away from the home for a period and you need to warm it quickly. That might take 24 hours if not done correctly. If you have floor joists on 16" centers then that means 2 runs per cavity. To be clear then you need 1 foot of pipe for every square foot of floor in the house. In N Carolina you could get by with less but not 1 run per joist cavity. Maybe 1 in first cavity and 2 in next and repeat. So at the least you would need 1800 feet of pex pulled thru 100+ holes as you pass thru the joists from 1 cavity to the next. Your runs should only be about 300' max so you need manifolds and zones fed by small pumps for each zone.

If you were less concerned with quick recovery then you could go 1 run per cavity and use the aluminum plates on all the straight runs and get away with it. That would help considerably. And I suppose you could drop below the joist at the end of a run to get to the next cavity. You would need to re-insulate the cavities and

I have this system in my house and the pex was installed after the house was framed. But mine is 15' in the air above my shop and I was able to use a electric scissor lift to install. And my joist are 4 x 12" on 4 ' centers.

Forget the e-classic, it has too many problems. Any place in the garage for a indoor boiler like my Tarm. It has been a wonderful unit and I would recommend to anyone.

I think you would find that this is a very large undertaking. I don't mean to discourage you but I have done a lot of things like this and I know it is always easy to plan these things but not always so easy to execute them. My vote would be for baseboard in as many places as you could and in-floor in the rest. Joe
Let's all be careful out there tomorrow. Lt40hd, 22' Kenworth Flatbed rollback dump, MM45B Mitsubishi trackhoe, Clark5000lb Forklift, Kubota L2850 tractor

Don_Papenburg

Contact ,   Radiantec .com   .   
My opinion is that tubes should be no further apart than 6"  runs no longer than 200'  give or take 25'
You can forgo aluminum plates if you use" Thermax "  foil faced insulation board about 1" below the stapeled up PEX tube  then add more insulation .  The gap makes the foil reflect radiant heat up .     6" spacing eliminates heat/cold stripeing.  Use a good waterheater it is designed for the temps that is needed for infloor heat. about 120 degrees.    Use Grunfus  or Bell and Gosset pumps    Buy Kytek fittings for all of your pex connections  .  These fitting require NO special tools .  Have an Oring or two inside the pex and a ferrel and nut on the outside to tighten for a leakfree fitting.
Frick saw mill  '58   820 John Deere power. Diamond T trucks

bandmiller2

Mom,whats said above is true,its a dirty job especially in a crawl space but doable.Its been years and I forget the site but their is a co. in vermont that sells 3/4 pex you just need one per 16" space,but its stiffer than the 1/2 " stuff,and harder to handle.That site also told how to make the plates to staple up the pex.The die was made of wood say two one foot square piece of 3/4 plywood round piece of wood or pipe same size as pex outher piece two strips of wood that the round piece will fit between.Put a piece of aluminum flashing on the bottom piece, on top step on it or you could use a big vice if you have one.You will also need a right angle drill like a Milwaukee hole hog and self feeding bits.Frank C.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

logwalker

I say buy the plates. The job is big enough already and the fit is excellent and with a staple gun you can snap them on and staple to the sheathing. They are a small fraction of the overall cost. Joe
Let's all be careful out there tomorrow. Lt40hd, 22' Kenworth Flatbed rollback dump, MM45B Mitsubishi trackhoe, Clark5000lb Forklift, Kubota L2850 tractor

monkeyratmom

Okay, definitely not going with E-classic.  And I don't think I'll make the plates either, because it just seems too much with all the other stuff that has to be done.  I'm not too concerned about recovery time, but I need to go under and study my subfloor and joists so I can have a better idea what has to be done.  The joists are 16".  One concern I have is that although I am going to place the OWB close to the house, it will be on the narrow end.  The far end of the house will be over 90 feet away.  This is only the kitchen and laundry room, so no big deal if it doesn't heat up as well as the rest of the house, but I wonder if there will be any issues re that or water flow.  I guess that would have to be its own zone.  We will have gas logs in the family room and living room fireplaces for supplemental heat.  Our current 7 year old electric water heater is in the laundry room, but I would like to put it in the crawl space in a central location, right now it takes forever for hot water to get to the bathrooms (what were they thinking?).  Anyhoo, we are basically starting from scratch with heat and hot water, and I've pretty much got my heart set doing things to my personal ideal, and I've lusted after radiant heat ever since I knew it existed.  So, OWB at end of house, radiant throughout, and hot water heated by OWB, tank centrally located, or maybe two tanks, one for kitchen and laundry, one for bathrooms.  Also I want as few zones as possible, we set and forget our thermostat about 65 degrees and NC is not so bad in the winter for the most part.  Our house is 2688 s.f., 92 feet long and 37 feet wide on the bedroom end, 29 wide in the middle and 14 at the carport end.  Lucky for me the crawl space is easy to get around in and work in, especially once the two air handlers get removed.  The not fun part is all the plumbing and wiring in the way, and the spiders.
Home Security telemarketer:  Hi, we are offering free installation in your area through the end of the month, and we would . . .
Me, interrupting:  We have dogs and guns, we're good.

monkeyratmom

Also meant to ask, is CB 6048 appropriate size?  It looks like we could go smaller, but we may enlarge the master bath and add a sunroom on the north side of the house in the future.  We will be getting dual fuel (propane) and try to use it year round since we have plenty of free wood, although we'll probably just let the gas heat the water in the summer because we are lazy.  :D  May be better for the unit if we don't use it in summer because not enough demand on it?  Although we do use plenty of hot water (family of four with pets).  Interested in hearing from people who've tried it both ways.
Home Security telemarketer:  Hi, we are offering free installation in your area through the end of the month, and we would . . .
Me, interrupting:  We have dogs and guns, we're good.

wiam

I use my Central Boiler older model (1998) to heat my water all year. I have no other source of hot water ( or heat).  I would go on bigger size just because of longer burn times.  radiant tec is the company in northern VT that has larger tubing size.  They are very helpful in free designs and estimates for a radiant system.

Will

Tim L

A friend of mine layed pex in his kitchen and poured lite weight concrete ,putting tile over it.
Do the best you can and don't look back

monkeyratmom

Radiantec called me today, I had send an inquiry from their website last week.  We had a good conversation so I am pretty sure what I am going to do on the radiant heat.  He thinks I'll be fine using 7/8" with only one run per joist space, which will save me a lot of wrestling and stapling, since I am not worried about recovery time and will have two gas fireplaces for bunwarming (that's where you come inside, turn on the fire, and back up to it and lift your skirt).  :D  I am going to go with the aluminum plates.  They also provide a foil backed paper that goes below the plates for even more reflectivity.  Then we will hopefully be able to re-use the fiberglass insulation we already have under there, it's not that old.

Actually I'll make hubby do the wrestling.  I'm the brains, after all.

Tues nite: Just got email with the quote.  Not bad, all necessary stuff plus shipping for less than $5700.
Home Security telemarketer:  Hi, we are offering free installation in your area through the end of the month, and we would . . .
Me, interrupting:  We have dogs and guns, we're good.

rowerwet

for quick recovery times, you could add a water to air heat exchanger (HX) and have it blow up through one floor duct and take air in through another. set it up with a switch for those times when you need heat fast. or a baseboard in just one room will do the same thing, heating up the mass of the floor may take to long sometimes.ea
Husky 460, Fiskars x27, X7

jpgreen

Quote from: Tim L on February 22, 2009, 07:41:58 PM
A friend of mine layed pex in his kitchen and poured lite weight concrete ,putting tile over it.

That is an innovative idea.  I've thought about framing a floor over the exisiting to install pex.

How did that work out?
-95 Wood-Mizer LT40HD 27 Hp Kawasaki water cooled engine-

Tim L

Do the best you can and don't look back

rowerwet

Instead of all that crawling around under the house, try the plywood flooring with channels that you pound pex into to heat the floor, it would go down on top of the floor.
since you like the pex on top of the floor idea.
Husky 460, Fiskars x27, X7

sjfarkas

I had a retrofit done on my 753 sqft house.  We stapled pex under the sub floor instead of using the aluminum flashing.  We then stapled the air bubble wrapp with aluminum and then some 6 " bat insulation underneath.  It seems to work great.  A heatmor is running this house, a small 10'*12' shed done the same way and also a 2250sqft shop.  When the shop is turned off we have no problems heating the house with little wood or oil consumption, but with the shop online it blows through firewood and oil, but it is sweet to work under a tractor on a warm concrete floor.  I had a plumber do the main install because of time constraints.  I think after seeing it done I could do it with no problem other than crawling under the house for 2 days.

Sasha
Always try it twice, the first time could've been a fluke.

Thehardway

monkeyrat,

Where are you at in NC?  Unless you are in the extreme W. mountain regions you should be in a primarily Cooling region.  Removing your Heat pumps and duct work will leave you without AC.  Radiant piping under wood floors in a conventional stick built home will do virtually nothing for you in the way of cooling.

If you are using a duel fuel boiler to heat your water I doubt you will save any money on energy costs by using a radiant system under a plywood/hardwood floor over a crawlspace as these are very poor heat conductors. 

I believe radiant hotwater baseboard heaters would be much better suited to your application and much cheaper/easier to install. 

I have a home very similar to yours in VA and I hate the heatpump ductwork, cold floors etc. just like you do.  I am installing radiant heat in my new home, however, when I did the ROI analysis on doing radiant in my existing home it did not pay off.  In fact the heat pumps are much cheaper and more efficient for your application if right sized, and well tuned and balanced.  Floors can be made warmer through better insulating the underside/crawlspace.  I am a big proponent of radiant but if it is not installed in the proper application it has been known to take people to the poor house.  You don't want to be there and be cold too!

OWB are much better suited to a water/air heat exchange than a Water/water for radiant heat.  It operates at much higher temps than radiant floors should run at.


Other things to consider:  your hardwood floors may not like the higher temps you expose them too with radiant heat.  They may shrink, move, squeak etc.  Be careful.

Norwood LM2000 24HP w/28' bed, Hudson Oscar 18" 32' bed, Woodmaster 718 planer,  Kubota L185D, Stihl 029, Husqvarna 550XP

monkeyratmom

We finally got our house refinanced last year and got a Central Classic 5036 with dual fuel option (propane).  I love it.  My husband complains, but he likes playing lumberjack, especially since we got a bigger chainsaw LOL.  We decided to go with wall-mount radiators from Myson.  The first few weeks I would just walk around marveling that every room in the house was the same temperature!  You forget what that's like after heating with just one ginormous woodstove in your den in a house not designed for efficient distribution of that kind of heat LOL.

I want to say thanks for all the good advice and just the pleasure of having a place to go where you can ask for help or just browse what others have posted.  It all helped tremendously in my thought processes as I ruminated it all to finally arrive at my decision destination LOL.
Home Security telemarketer:  Hi, we are offering free installation in your area through the end of the month, and we would . . .
Me, interrupting:  We have dogs and guns, we're good.

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