RADIANT HEAT

I'M NEW TO THE FORUM SO I HOPE I DID THIS RIGHT!!!MY QUESTION IS ON RADIANT HEAT(HOPE I DONT BORE PEOPLE HERE).I LIVE IN MAHANOY CITY PA!! I'M LIVING ON TOP OF THE BLACK DIAMONDS!!!I HEAT WITH COAL, I HOPE TO UPLOAD A COUPLE OF PICTURES OF MY UNITS YES THREE WHEN I FIGURE THIS THING OUT MY TOYS INCLUDE EFM 520 DUAL FUEL, ALASKA KAST KONSOLE W/POWERVENT AND REBUILDING A KEYSTOKER K6 BOILER FOR MY GARAGE WITCH I'M PLANNING TO BUILD AS SOON AS THE WEATHER BREAKS FOR CONCRETE WORK. MY RADIANT HEAT QUESTION IS DOES IT REALLY WORK? MY GARAGE IS GOING TO BE 24 BY 40. MY INITIAL PLAN IS FOR RADIANT HEAT AND I'VE DONE MY HOMEWORK ON INSTALLATION PROCEDURES WITH MANIFOLDS ZONE VALVES AND THE THEORY BEHIND IT, BUT I'M LOOKING TO HEAR IT FROM THE HORSES MOUTH DOES IT WORK. MY OTHER OPTION IS HOT WATER MODINES FROM THE CEILING BUT MY FEAR IS THEY MIGHT SOUND LIKE A TORPEDO HEATER.. ANYBODY WITH ANY INPUT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!!!!!!!!!!! I KNOW RADIANT HEAT TAKES TIME TO BUILD UP TO TEMP AND MODINES HAVE A QUICK RECOVERY TIME BUT I'M LEANING MORE TOWARD QUIETNESS.

Hello Mino, welcome to the forum. I have a 40'x60' x15'high shop that is heated by a radiant hot water floor. I keep the floor around 40-50*, this gives me air temperature of 35* to 45* depending on outside temperatures, wind and solar gain.

I could raise the floor temp and get a warmer shop, but I usually work in one corner work area at a time, so if I'm going to be in one area for several hours, I bring an electric or propane radiant heater into the work area. This is less expensive that heating the whole shop to a warmer temp.

One very nice thing about radiant floor heat is that the objects in the shop are very close to the same temp as the floor. The tools are not sweating from warm moist air being blown around the shop from ceiling heaters.

So YES !! Radiant floor heat works very well. This is my second radiant floor heated shop/garage.

Also: please turn off the CAPS LOCK on your keyboard. Typing in all caps is considered yelling and is hard on the eyes.

I attached a photo of the shop, you can just see the two propane hot water heaters that I used to use to heat the shop floor. They are on the right side under the loft.

Greg L

Thanks dude. sorry about the caps i'm not yellin at all. thats a big space you are heating.

Not a problem, it's a 'forum' thing.

I insulated the edges of the slab down below the frost line, and have a layer of insulation under the slab too. As well as a layer of plastic for a vapor/water barrier.

I went with 6" thick concrete except under the posts of the hoist, there the reinforcing is doubled and the concrete is 8" thick.

Having a warm floor gives warm feet, and that means I'm warm. I also put 2" foam on the ceiling with an aluminum foil facing. The foil reflects the radiant back down onto your head and shoulders. It works!!

I now am heating the water with my coal fired boiler which also heats the house.

I have some more ideas about making a neat shop floor if you want more info let me know.

Greg L.

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Greg, you need a bigger shop.

coaledsweat wrote:Greg, you need a bigger shop.

I was thinking the same thing myself. I have a cousin like that, he attached his house to the garage.

My dream home is a 100'x150' 16' ceiling shop with a long loft along one side that is my apartment. Why have the toys out in a separate building where you can't look at them without going outside first??

When the shop was new, it seemed HUGE!! I have some photos of when it had only one car in it, no corner shops set up. Now it seems so small and cluttered.

I REALLY need to have a major 'spring-cleaning'. I have corners that haven't seen daylight for several years.

I put in two four-post lifts to double stack the collector cars, and free up floor space. I was always moving one car out into the weather to get a truck up on the hoist.

I moved the gas pumps up off the floor and made a shelf for them on the edge of one of the lofts. I'll try to find that photo.

Greg L

Whoever dies with the most toys wins! It looks like you have a good head start. That's the nicest shop I've ever seen.

WOW! Ls Farm! i bet you kept the concrete plant busy where you are at.
any ideas you have please share!!!!
how many miles of pex did you use. lol.

What size pex did you use, and what kind of spacing?

I have all my insulation for under the slab and vapor barriers (just watin for the damn weather to break)

i plan on using a six loop manifold with pipe runs of 200ft to 250ft on the feed and return. inch feed manifold with half inch pex loops and taco mixing valve to mix the water about 90 degreese trying to achieve the temp of the garage about 72 degreese. garage size 40x24x8

i know 72 degreese sounds high for a garage but where i live the breaker is 1 mile down the road so coal useage is not a problem even though i have a 10 ton coal bin

in the summer months i plan on using the boiler with some sort of heat exchanger to heat the pool (pool is on shady side of house)

Hi Mino, first if you want to save a few bucks, skip the mixing valve and make a mixing valve with three ball valves. I went whole hog with a big 1" inlet 1.25" outlet valve designed for OSHA drench showers. I found out I could have just used a $15 ball valve to accomplish the same thing.

I didn't use Pex, when I plumbed and poured this floor, pex was in it's infancy and VERY expensive. I had used on my last garage floor 3/4" black plastic irrigation pipe used by the sprinkler installers. If you keep the system under a slight pressure, and PUSH the fluid through the piping, the oxygen barrier is not a necessary item. The previous garage is going on 20 years, no corrosion in the system.

I do run some glycol with the water, this helps reduce corrosion too.

Keep the circuits equal as possible to reduce the flow differences. Shorter loops with small diameter tubing. I have 8 loops of 180-200' each.

Make some steel 4" diameter tubes with 1/4" thick plates welded on top. Torch cut an X in the center, this is a chain pocket. install several of thes pockets with the top plate flush with the concrete. You drop a length chain into the X, and then slide the chain into one leg, the cross link catches under the steel. This makes moving heavy objects easy by yourself, there is alway an anchor to attach a come-along to.

Another thing I did was to find nesting steel tube, I think I found 4" id and 3" id with 1/4" wall slid inside each other. Put several large tubes in the floor where you might want the ocasional vice, grinder, anvil all on a pedistal fo the smaller pipe nesting in the steel pocket in the floor. I use a vice for a project then pull it out of the floor and put the vixe and pedistal in a corner, out of the way till I need it again. I have an anvil, a big grinder, and a portable steel welding platform on pedistals.

Take photos of the floor layout, and keep them. I used mine to find the hoist anchor areas, then a laser thermometer to trace the hot water pipes prior to drilling the anchor bolts.

That's all I can think of right now.

Oh, You can use white steel barn siding for the ceiling, blow in insulation above instead of the sheets of foil faced foam. The white steel siding will reflect the radiant heat back down almost as well as the aluminum surface does.

Greg L

Hey Greg are those White wall tires 700X15 by chance? Nice shop! Thanks for the info on your radiant floor.

Those tires are either 600x22 or 750x17, there are two sets up in the loft. The 17" ones fit a '33 Pierce Arrow, the 22" for a '26 Pierce Arrow.

In one photo there are four big tires in the center bridge over the tool boxes, those were drag slicks stored for a friend.

The Pierce Arrow automobile is one of my passions and hobbies. A VERY high quality automobile, made in Buffalo Ny from 1901 untill 1938.

Greg L

Greg .. Pierce is one of my favorites! Just passed the old Factory the other day. Well not too keep posting "off" subject I too am a "antique" car fan.

Radiant in the slab is the best way to go in my opinion. You can always add modine heaters at any time down the road.
LsFarm highlighted everything I would say...except for mentioning the best thing about radiant in the slab is when you are on a 'creeper' working under something, close to the floor...you don't get the 'cold floor feel'...which makes a big difference.
I also like the idea I'm not the only one 'out there' that has used the black 'irrigation poly tubing' for radiant in the slab. It works well. When I built "the barn" ten years ago I put 360' of 1/2inch in the slab...for 'future use' (knew someday I would have a coal/wood boiler).
A few recomendations: Try to design your loops in a "logical fashion" (if any doubts...contact a P&H supplier...alot of radiant companies now offer the loop design for free or a nominal charge...best way for them to 'advertise'...the beauty is they do the calcs for you and give 'all the numbers'). It is "recomended" the loops be manifolded and 'under pressure' before the concrete is poured. If you are 'building the loops yourself' (like some of us have using black poly)...running "hot water" through the tubing makes it 'easier to form' the loops. While it may 'add some cost'... 4' x 8' sheets of '6-inch wire mesh' makes a great 'grid' to wire tie the tubing loops to...making for a 'better pour' when the time comes.
BTW...I like your workshop Greg..."little more spacious than my tool shed"

Here is my (10x16x18) 'barn with radiant' I built:

LsFarm wrote:My dream home is a 100'x150' 16' ceiling shop with a long loft along one side that is my apartment. Why have the toys out in a separate building where you can't look at them without going outside first??
Greg L

My wife and I were just discussing this yesterday. I'm not sure I'd go quite that big, but indeed, a tall shop with upstairs "office" or loft would be sweet.

We live 5 minutes from our local airport (Poplar Grove, IL - C77). We rent part of a 50x50 heated hangar to keep our little Cessna 140. I'd like to get ahold of the entire hangar, but that's another story. But, there are several VERY nice hangars out at the airport that have apartments, lofts, etc. inside. One fellow has TWO, side by side, one for classic cars, the other for classic planes. He's done rather well for himself.

There are also a fair shair of $1million+ homes there on the 'airpark' with built in hangars, etc. But the local town is really screwing the people with taxes due to the "rich" nature of the inhabitants.

Chris