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[ffbare]

Hey I couldn't find too much on heat plates. I am kicking around the idea of maybe tacking up the aluminum heat plates the the underside of my floors from the basement. The question I have is how well does it work? I have an old home 1852 so I have the old subfloor with 3/4 hardwood on top of that which is in bad shape so now I'm putting a second hardwood floor right over that. So any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.  I'm open to the idea of baseboard heaters but I don't know.  Thank you

[slimjim]

Check out Ulta Fin.

[Sprinter]

The key is even heat, and aluminum plates are needed to "spread" the radiant heat. These panels can be purchases or made fairly easily. There are a few that sell the Al coil and a bender. The more the plate contacts the subfloor the better transfer. The cheaper the plate the less surface area makes good contact with subfloor. The thicker the subfloor , the more transfer you need, and or depending on floor R value more btu to the tubing. Hardwood floors are sensitive to too much heat or too high supply temps. Engineered materials are sometimes much more forgiving.

[slimjim]

Ultra Fin does not touch the wood at all. It is designed to evenly heat the floor joist bay itself by using the air within the bay, It is run with no mixing valve and safe for ALL floors

[ffbare]

I saw the ultra fin system but will heat transfer almost 3 inches of wood? Or is that wasting my time.

[slimjim]

I would bet it would do abetter job than staple up

[mlappin]

I saw the ultra fin system but will heat transfer almost 3 inches of wood? Or is that wasting my time.

Snow melters or radiant heat warm up all that concrete. Wouldn't think it'd take much to warm a wood floor up, response time might be a little slower

[ffbare]

That's a good point with the concrete I didn't think of that but it's not in the slab it's floating below the floor.  Too many ways to do this but I think that's half the fun. Thanks guys I'm going to do some pricing on that system.

[ITO]

 Maybe I'm of on this but don't most of these systems require insulation below the plates so the heat can only go up (for the most part)?

[slimjim]

yes

[Sprinter]

I kinda like that ultra fin, haven't seen that one before. At first I thought......eeeeeehh no temp control, but they used to do floors with just fin tube back in the day. Pre 70's. So what's really the diff.

I think with hardwood I would still have supply temp control. Real hardwood can go bad with hot temps. I wonder if because it does not make direct contact that it will be fine. 

[slimjim]

It's fine, I've been there!

[willieG]

sun shining through a plate glass window in july can warm a hadrwood floor much hotter than the water in teh pex pipes....harwood cracks and shrinks becasue of moisture loss more so than warming it up

[mlappin]

sun shining through a plate glass window in july can warm a hadrwood floor much hotter than the water in teh pex pipes....harwood cracks and shrinks becasue of moisture loss more so than warming it up

I installed a whole house humidifier, the insides of a house can get much drier than you think in the winter. Wife will suffer nosebleed after nosebleed if the humidifier isn't working 100%. Since adding central air as well, we can keep the moisture level the same practically year round. All these solid wood interior doors now close the same whether it be summer or winter instead of sticking in the summer and being to see light around them in the winter.