Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => General Outdoor Furnace Discussion => Topic started by: justinb on October 22, 2015, 11:40:32 AM
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Now that I have 1 year with my OWB under my belt, I'm thinking of adding to my usage. Currently, my incoming line runs to DHW and then to forced air furnace. My house is fairly new, and had them install lines in the basement floor for future heating. The basement has an exposure( if that matters) and is unfinished. The duct work in the basement is always closed and it is still plenty warm. The stair case from the main floor to the basement is open and the subfloor is not insulated. My question is: Is it going to help me out from an efficiency level to hook up my floor heat in the basement? Or is it better to wait until I finish the basement and just enjoy the warmth on my feet then? If you feel that a lot of heat from the basement floor would rise to my main floor and be more efficient than solely running the forced air furnace, then I feel it would be worth it.
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I am not sure about efficiency but I heat my basement floor just because I can and I love it. The kids are all gone so there is no real need to heat it but we find warm floors awesome. Hooking it up and having it ready is just one step done that you will have to do later. I do know that the basement will keep the house warm even with the boiler off for a day at least. There is a lot of thermal storage in the concrete. If you find it does not serve your purposes now after a trail run you can always shut it off. But make sure you fill it with antifreeze.
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Don't hook it up, I come to you with first hand experience. While you will have a nice warm basement floor radiant heat does not rise, hot AIR does. You will increase the amount of wood you burn noticeably with no transfer or minimal transfer to your upstairs. The closer you get to a radiant floor the warmer it is so in order to have a 70 degree room (at 5'-6'), your floor temp will be around 75 degrees. Your ceiling temp will be even lower, because again radiant heat does Not rise!
Maybe someday I will fire my floor back up just to circulate the water but until I finish my basement it stays off.
(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b307/cartod/Amicalola/photo_zps68abeef5.jpg)
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wouldn't hot air be the opposite? (just wondering) to be 70 degrees at 5'6 your ceiling would be much hotter and your floor much cooler?
if the floor is warmer than the ceiling I would think you would feel warmer and may get by with a cooler room temp?
just throwing it out there for professional oppinions??
Don't hook it up, I come to you with first hand experience. While you will have a nice warm basement floor radiant heat does not rise, hot AIR does. You will increase the amount of wood you burn noticeably with no transfer or minimal transfer to your upstairs. The closer you get to a radiant floor the warmer it is so in order to have a 70 degree room (at 5'-6'), your floor temp will be around 75 degrees. Your ceiling temp will be even lower, because again radiant heat does Not rise!
Maybe someday I will fire my floor back up just to circulate the water but until I finish my basement it stays off.
(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b307/cartod/Amicalola/photo_zps68abeef5.jpg)
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I’ve heard the same about heated floors in shops, nice and toasty if your working at floor level or under something, but can be cold up by the ceiling if your on top of a combine or something working. Would certainly think the floor should heat the air and the warm air should rise and eventually warm it up by the ceiling.
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If this is the case, then means this means in floor heating would be more effeceint for that room. You,re heating only the area, within 6 feet from the floor.. it becomes a disadvantage if it,s important if you would like to heat the next floor level, or else move the heated air with a ceiling fan. Just curious.
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I never noticed a big difference in wood consumption but I do know I keep the thermostat at 68 on the wall and upstairs it is at 71, when my wife comes down here she tells me the room is hot?
I have had someone in the business tell me radiant heat moves in all directions towards cold..so i guess if your slab is well insulated it should reflect most of that heat back into the room. What i was told by this man was that your slab should have 2 inch min underit and also up the inside wall to where your studs start (then of course the wall would be insulated as well) this was for a slab in a basement. if on grade then insulating the outer walls would be different
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This is all good info. I wasn't planning on filling the lines with antifreeze?? Is this necessary. I have radiant in my garage(also not hooked up) that I was going to fill with antifreeze, but not the basement.
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Heat goes all-ways ...did I read rite that u have no insulation under the slab?...that's to bad ...turn the heat on/fill her up ,u can shut it down like the others have said, u will luv it . I had r heat in my last place and then stant fin on the 2up stairs floors it worked great ...just like I had the whole house sitting on the back bunker/ hot plate. It does rise as all heat rises..them shimmers rising off the black top hwy ...they are there...and its rising ain't it !
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This is all good info. I wasn't planning on filling the lines with antifreeze?? Is this necessary. I have radiant in my garage(also not hooked up) that I was going to fill with antifreeze, but not the basement.
If you ever have to leave for the winter and have the furnace quit or any scenario that could allow the floor to freeze it can bust your concrete all to hell, for the price of a few buckets 60 bucks each it eliminates that. I have mine a 50/50 mix so burst protection to -40. You could dilute it even more if you live in a warmer climate. That is as cold as I have ever seen it here and only for a few nights.
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my basement floor is about 6 feet below grade, I don't think I would worry about it freezing? I have a loop in my garage that I made a closed loop and use a home made water to water heat exchanger to heat it, and I do have antifreeze in the closed loop, this allows me to shut it off when I am not going to be out there and then turn it on the night before I plan on working in it.
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I have radiant in my shop floor, my laser thermometer says its 6 degrees colder at the peak 20 ft from the floor.
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I’ve heard the same about heated floors in shops, nice and toasty if your working at floor level or under something, but can be cold up by the ceiling if your on top of a combine or something working. Would certainly think the floor should heat the air and the warm air should rise and eventually warm it up by the ceiling.
Bingo. If you are trying to heat the second floor with radiant heat from the 1st floor it becomes inefficiant. My slab is insulated underneath and once warm will stay that way for days. I took the basement floor up to 85 degrees last year with minimal transfer to the upstairs. My mistake was not putting radiant heat under the main floor when I built the house. I'm going to go back and do underneath the master bathroom floor.
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This is all good info. I wasn't planning on filling the lines with antifreeze?? Is this necessary. I have radiant in my garage(also not hooked up) that I was going to fill with antifreeze, but not the basement.
I don't even think it necessary to do the garage if it is attached. I guess it depends on what part of the country you are in.
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just keep it simple, hook it up and heat your home, that's why we are all burning wood, good cheap heat, and its good for your home to keep everything heated, some times too many calculations,charts,etc....just hook the floor up and in my opinion I wouldnt add any antifreeze.....I also have a attached heated garage, no antifreeze, its no issue......just my two cents
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I agree with Constable. I have a detached shop with radiant and never have had any anti-freeze. This will be the 8th season and never had any problems. Once it's up to temp (55-58) it really doesn't take much to maintain.
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Heat goes all-ways ...did I read rite that u have no insulation under the slab?...that's to bad ...turn the heat on/fill her up ,u can shut it down like the others have said, u will luv it . I had r heat in my last place and then stant fin on the 2up stairs floors it worked great ...just like I had the whole house sitting on the back bunker/ hot plate. It does rise as all heat rises..them shimmers rising off the black top hwy ...they are there...and its rising ain't it !
Sorry, start all the threads you want but you are misinforming people. Heat does not rise, hot air molecules do.
Radiant heat is not for everybody
http://www.tesmar.com/html/radiant_floors_vs_radiant_ceilings.html
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i would never doubt an expert but I have questions...if I put ceiling heat in my basement I have a hard time believing my concrete floor will ever feel warm on my bare feed..and I wonder would I have to insulate the foor above the heat pipes in order not for half my btu escaping into the upstairs ?
I will agree in floor heat needs to be figured closely and floor covering play a huge part in it. is it a good idea or not? for me my ceramic tile in my basement is always warm on the feet and the whole room. whether the heat is rising or moisture molecules are being heated and moving I don't know, but I do know if I turn the infloor heat off not only my feet get cold but my nose does too so somehow that heat in the pipes in the floor is getting to the whole room, in what form I don't know but if I was ever to build a new house I would have no blower to move heat, it would be in floor and radiant baseboard...clean, quiet and I think cheaper to operate once the initial cost of installing was over. I might even consider in ceiling if it was explained to me by an expert or I read a lot of information on it.
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Bottom line, if your basement is finished and you use it by all means go radiant heat. If you are heating your unfinished basement with radiant floors and expect the heat to travel efficiently all over the main and second floor then it becomes inefficient, not to mention in my case heating a 3,000 sq ft basement for nothing (the plate heat exchanger keeps it plenty warm). Sure the home will eventually be warm but the basement will be 90 degrees and you will have gone thru cords of wood.
The heat in the basement slab will not even transfer efficiently to your basement walls if your floors have rubber expansion around the perimeter (reccomended) and your exterior basement walls aren't insulated underground.
My ranch home is 7500 sq ft. 3000' basement, 3400' main floor and 1100' second floor bonus room. The main floor and the second floor have the water heat exchangers in the furnaces, and the basement is radiant. All heated with a boiler (either indoor gas, or outdoor heatmaster 10,000e). I have 6" insulated walls and 11" insulation in ceiling.
We keep the main floor at 68* using the main floor air ducted furnace. The second floor isn't used unless we have company so that furnace is set at 57*. The basement stays around 64* because it's underground mostly and all of the water running through the pipes and plate heat exchanger becomes radiant heat.
If I turn off the main floor furnace and try to heat with the radiant floor basement it doesn't work because in order to transfer that type of heat (radiant) up to the main floor ive got to get my slab up to at least 85* and the wood consumption almost doubles (now I'm heating 2 times as much house). Not to mention the furnace isn't running so I need to turn the blower on to get air cleaner and the humidifier working.
Radiant heat is not for all rooms/homes.
If I were to get a redo I would have put radiant heat on the main floor (basement ceiling) and basement floor.
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Approximately 80% of heat loss on radiant slab heating is in the perimeter walls.
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I have to add that the hot air molecules from my slab heat are keeping my 3rd floor at 44+degs :)
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I have to add that the hot air molecules from my slab heat are keeping my 3rd floor at 44+degs :)
:bash:
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at one time (maybe when heating oil was 20 cents a gallon) the "experts" said insulating your basement slab was a waste of money as the ground temp under there would never be below about 50 degrees....imagine that today. Hell, we worry about 100 feet of insulated line coming from the boiler losing 1 degree now! just think if you had 5 or 600 feet in the ground under you slab with no insulation?
from what I read now, slabs should have a min 2 inches of good insulation under them and even up the inside wall to where your studs start (and then of coarse insulation in there)
i think with the cost of all fuels insulation is a great investment ,especially for retrofitting projects
when ever we decided to re-do a room in our old farm house i had the stud walls filled with foam, man, that stuff stops a draft PRONTO!
here our electric bills are skyrocketing we are averaging about 23 cents a KWH and prices are going up the end of the month again.
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Approximately 80% of heat loss on radiant slab heating is in the perimeter walls.
Amen.
My Father is still convinced we can take the old shop that isn’t near large enough or tall enough, tear out the old concrete, reinstall new with radiant heat in the floors and not insulate the perimeter and it will work just fine. I’ve shown him all kinds of data that says it won’t work, still won’t listen, so as of lately I tell him go right ahead, you’ve just taken over the wood cutting duty. He’s going on 68 next year that usually ends the talk of that foolishness. But…he’s still convinced too much insulation is bad as it might lead to mold or radon problems.
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Insulating a slab both under and edge is very important. Here in VT we are required to have 3" under and at the edge. The edge is a PITA depending on the use of the building such as a garage (driving over it) but like Slim said earlier it is a must to have any efficiency. We're doing an addition right now with a slab on the first floor and will have foam in the walls and ceiling. The clients know it will be tighter then the main but don't understand how much tighter. I've told them as soon a they walk into that wing it will be like walking out of cooler and into the sun. Radiant and foam are awesome (if done right).
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No need to split hairs. In floor heat does transfer the heat in the lines to the slab and then to the air at it's surface which then rises and cools as it does so. The beauty of in floor heat is that the area where you work or live, 5 to 6 feet off the floor is maintained at the temperature needed and the unused area near the ceiling, especially in tall buildings, will be cooler.
I can't imagine not putting antifreeze in garages or shops with overhead doors. If doors are accidentally left open, a pump were to fail or the boiler itself goes down for any reason you would be looking at catastrophic results which could have been prevented for a small cost.
For in floor heat, insulate-insulate-insulate, especially the perimeter as Slim pointed out where the worst heat lost can occur. Also for overhead doors with connecting approaches the thermal barrier between heated and non-heated areas is critical to prevent thermal transfer to the outside approach.
You will use more wood but it may not be that much depending on the temperature you keep the basement in floor area at. You didn't say if that additional in floor area will have it's own T-stat or not? It should.