Cost of Radiant Flooring

So my house has baseboard heat with radiant flooring in the kitchen, dining room, and two bathrooms. From what I can see the flooring was installed with the Pex just stapled to the floor. I want to redo it with the metal channels going down both sides the the floor joists, and then insulate it before replacing the sheet rock ceiling in the basement. I'm also thinking of maybe just having the whole floor plan done. Anyone have a rough idea what that might cost if I had it professionally done?

1800 Sq ft.
Maybe two zones

I had a quote last summer for a ranch home about 1600 SF for pex and insulated bubble wrap but no aluminum channels and it came in about $4.00 to $5.00 per sq ft. That price might have included a four zone manifold and necessary controls. But it should give you an approximate range. I did not get the work done because of cost overruns on other parts of the rehab so that was the first to be axed.

When I looked into this a while back, the plates were always the expensive part.

Considered making them, saw some cool DIY jigs, but too many other things going on at the time.

But the price of metals is way down right now, so maybe they're more attractively priced now?

Can't help you on an installation price, sorry.

unless you don't have a life - or want a poor transfer of heat energy from the pex to the plate

Wait and buy the factory formed plates at the big box store when they come on sale.
Staple them [with the pex enclosed of course] UNDER the floor - not on the floor joist

Your mileage may vary

before pex = I purchased end lots of fin tube Anything I could find sometimes I could get boxes of fin tube that had the ends smashed. I would hang this in the center of the joist bay on blocks or chunks of foam insulation so as to muffle or stop all expansion noise - then enclose the joint bay with foil face sheets = LABOR INTENSIVE at best. The joist bay then became a small inefficient "radiator" - and the floor was warm to bare feet. Usually not enough to replace the traditional radiation - but that flow and energy could be balanced out to play well with the added radiation of the floor.

Kind Regards
Sting

Sting wrote:before pex = I purchased end lots of fin tube Anything I could find sometimes I could get boxes of fin tube that had the ends smashed. I would hang this in the center of the joist bay on blocks or chunks of foam insulation so as to muffle or stop all expansion noise - then enclose the joint bay with foil face sheets = LABOR INTENSIVE at best. The joist bay then became a small inefficient "radiator" - and the floor was warm to bare feet. Usually not enough to replace the traditional radiation - but that flow and energy could be balanced out to play well with the added radiation of the floor.

That's quite interesting... I'm always amazed at people's innovations