best heating system

[Yankee]

"Wow, your absolutely the first to say this. Most people love it, others go as far as saying they will never have a home without it again. "

I will say that I dislike radiant ceilings far more than radiant floors. Even so, were I looking to buy a house and found one with a radiant floor system, I'd reject it out of hand.

We all tend to focus on people who agree with us. My corresponding reply to your comment, for example, is that I've met quite a few people who dislike radiant floors.

Aside from comfort, though, my basic objection is that all tubing system in existence eventually have problems - from a boat engine cooling systems to beer dispensing equipment. Bury tubing in a slab and it means that at some point you're going to have to tear up and replace or patch that slab. That's a whole lot more difficult, expensive, messier, and disruptive than replacing, say, a baseboard register. It's also less flexible in terms of changing the configuration. With conventional systems, you can almost change the system at a whim. I had an HVAC guy move several registers and added a couple in my new house in an hour or so. With a radiant system, what you've got is what you've got. You can vary flow and fluid heat input within limits, but not the layout.

 

[Yankee]

"SIPS is intriguing. if you dont mind my asking, how did it cost out?"

I used Spray In Polyurethane (SIP), not Structural Insulated Panels (SIPS). Sorry for the confusion! I actually used a hybrid system, 2" of SIP combined with unfaced fiberglass batt. It priced out at just a few hundred dollars more for the house than all fiberglass batt (4000 SF house). I bargained the company down pretty hard, however, as he was interested in getting on the builder's vendor list. The price included extra-depth fiberglass insulation in the garage ceiling and batting in the 1st floor ceilings for sound deadening. The crawl space under the house and the exterior garage walls were done conventionally with fiberglass.

 

[SPIKER]

hey RAT:

how about some more info on the ICF stuff? not sure I've heard much about this, is this prefab blocks or somethign>?

I watched some good info on the STRAW BALE constuction, out in vegas/ AZ soemplace as the heat is the killer there. here I would be affraid of BUGS as it seems ants and termites seem to RULE here more than the people. I have tons of red/black BIG ants, and lots of small red pi$$ ants, as well as the big BLACK CARPENTER ants. the termites are also nasty but you either have them BAD or not at all. I have the ants and the termites won't move in as they are natural enimies. but for some reason they have seemed to divide up my womans house, termites in the front ants in the back! (orkin wants 400 more for the 2nd year to inspection when they hardly did squat for them the first year...

Mark M

 

[BillG_in_TX]

RaT,

I'm with SPIKER. How about starting a new thread on your particular brand of ICF?

I know there have been other discussions about ICF in the past, but I'm always interested in hearing from a new disciple about a new brand. One of these days, I plan to build my last home with ICF's. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[_RaT_]

"We all tend to focus on people who agree with us. My corresponding reply to your comment, for example, is that I've met quite a few people who dislike radiant floors."

Yankee, you have a point. Out here in California, there still is very little radiant. We really don't have a climate that can necessarily benefit from it like folks back East. My reference is from a relatively small amount of folks I know, the rest is via various websites. On the otherhand, we do have a considerable amount of solar. It works well out here as we have more sunny days in my location then most any part of Florida.

Spiker, Bill, here is a link to a product I am most familiar with. Nudura

 

[farmerpsv]

Hey Rat,
i lived at lake shasta when i was a kid, where you at?
Yankee,
ive restored 3 victorians (notorious leakers) and used icenene
foam for one of them. its amazing stuff and is something i would use with a panelized house if i go that way. i am weighing budget against speed of construction against energy efficiency. i to am into the sustainable thing and plan to put a 6kw pv array on the roof as well as use solar water heating. it all costs though. im paying 100k for the land which leaves me 175 to do the house. i have a full time job so cant do all the building myself, am looking to do a dry in and take it from there. i have wired and plumbed a few houses, but would just as soon not if i dont have to. with all these different types of construction(sips, metal, icf) comes a new learning curve. im used to wood, so doing electrical, plumbing and finish work in a new setting will be...different. we people with altzheimers try to minimize our challenges. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
paul

 

[Yankee]

"i am weighing budget against speed of construction against energy efficiency. "

I hear you! If that's the case, the most bang for the cheapest buck by far is to go to 2x6 construction and stick with conventional insulation. SIPS are expensive and will change how you wire and plumb. Steel makes good interior studding and it's actually easier to run wire and pipe. It's not hard to do, either. I wouldn't use it on the outside walls, even though some builders have. I think the jury is out on that.

 

[bebster]

I wouldn't be afraid of radiant under a wood floor. I think you can run the temp in the pex tubing at a lower temperature than 120. Stadler-viega (link posted above) makes a nice 1/2" thick panel that accepts the tubing. A friend of mine just put it under a wide-pine floor and had no issues this winter (a very cold one in MA). I plan to do the same this year.

 

[dmccarty]

Farmerpsv,

We are building our house and we where going to put in radient flooring. We ended up not putting in the radient due to cost. We are have a slab. We like slabs. One big advantage a slab has is that you can use it to absorb heat. We have some passive solar heating in the house. Not as much as we wanted but design/dollars tradeoffs change the house foot print. A slab and radient are a perfect match since the slab holds that energy when the heat has been turned off.

However for us, radient was not going to work. We don't have gas hook ups so we would have to have propane. I don't want gas anyway and propane is expensive. We have to have AC so a heat pump is just a given. With no gas how are we going to heat the water? It can be done with electric but I was not thrilled with that idea. We looked at wood burning boilers both indoor and outdoor but they where too much money.

What we really wanted was solar to heat our house hot water as well as the radient. However, we want at least one good wood stove. Our house is also being built with 2x6 walls with rigid insulation on the walls as well as under the slab. ALL windows are casements. We should have a tight house with good insulation. Soooo, with some passive heat gain, a wood stove, a tight insulated house, AND a heat pump, it just did not make sense for use to spend money on yet another way to heat the house. We where looking to spend at least $7,000 to heat the house and water. Even with tax breaks it was too much money.

So for us, radient and active solar was not the way to go. I would still like to put in solar hot water heat but I don't think it makes sense dollar wise. If we had a pool or sauna it would be a different matter.

I would look at building a passive solar house. They do work and don't cost much extra to build. It sounds like you are not going to have a wood stove in the house so radient would not be over kill as it was for us.

Since dust is a problem try not to use carpets. The only carpets we are going to have are small ones we can take outside to hose down. I HATE carpet. All they do is hold dirt. We just bought a new Dyson vacuum cleaner. Its unreal how much dirt this thing keeps taking out of the carpet but that is another thread.

If finishes and off gassing is an issue you really might want a slab as well. It would be easier to put down tile or stone flooring. Or you can do what we are trying to do which is to have a finished colored concrete floor.

Remember one thing about building. Its all about compromise.....

Later,
Dan McCarty

 

[dmccarty]

Yankee said, </font><font color="blue" class="small">( Aside from comfort, though, my basic objection is that all tubing system in existence eventually have problems - from a boat engine cooling systems to beer dispensing equipment. Bury tubing in a slab and it means that at some point you're going to have to tear up and replace or patch that slab. )</font>

You are right that if the pipes have a problem then you have a big problem. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif In Florida very few houses are built on crawl spaces. All of my extended family had slab houses. An they have lived for decades in slab houses. Some houses since the 50's. Not one ever had a plumbing problem in the slab.

The house we are building is on a slab. In fact to get a slab we had to bring in 350 tons of gravel for the foundation to build the slab. I like slabs foundations. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif Hopefully the plumping will work like it does in Florida!!!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Later,
Dan

 

[Yankee]

"You are right that if the pipes have a problem then you have a big problem."

When I lived in CA there were a bunch of people that had horrendous plumbing problems. All the houses were built during the same period, and several had pipe deterioration and leakages in or under the slabs. The practice in Southern CA at that time was to plumb with black iron pipe. Definitely not my favorite, but the local plumbers didn't really know how to deal with copper. Maybe they've gone to plastics since then, I don't know. In any event, it turned out to be a run of defective, low-quality pipe the builder got a "deal" on.

A couple of other thing to consider with embedded tubing and pipe: first, settlement and slab cracking can cause problems, second, doing it in an earthquake zone is asking for it. I was fortunate during the Northridge quake in that my house's slab didn't crack. Several neighbors weren't as lucky. My next door neighbor's house was condemned and torn down.

Small diversion from the thread - the tractor used to tear down his house was something to see. It was HUGE! The view from the cab was into the second floor windows. To tear the house down, the operator stuck the bucket into the garage, lifted, and collapsed the house. He then proceeded to run all over it for about an hour or so (it was tracked), crushing it to matchsticks, and loaded the debris into dump trucks. Done - all in half a day.

 

[_RaT_]

Not sure to what you are refferring to. Black iron pipe is used for plumbing your gas lines, the drawbacks of running steam in any metal pipe is obvious. ABS pipe is used for DWV and had issues back in the 70's with its original formula coming from "non virgin" stock. Copper is fine unless in acidic water situations or old and laiden with lead solder. There were huge problems using the poly tubing as part of the domestic water system. The longest lasting pipe is PEX from what I am reading. It is slowly being seen in construction in CA. It has been in use in Europe for many years where advanced aging studies have shown its longevity. The PEX pipe for radiant floor systems is considerably different from that of PEX domestic water. Fine Homebuilding or Journal of Light Construction ran an article as I remember about this.

 

[Yankee]

"Not sure to what you are refferring to. Black iron pipe is used for plumbing your gas lines ..."

Yes, but I'm talking about WATER lines. My house was plumbed 100% with iron pipe.

 

[Stonefox]

RAT, I too am planning on using ICFs. I bought a property about a year and a half ago in which the original owner had started to build the home with ICFs. He had gotten the lower floor, which is a half basement, up and he ran into some financial problems so he had to sell the property. He also had PEX radiant heat lines put into the half basement slab and I would like to extend that heating system into the upper floor. I'm planning on using solar for heating and domestic hot water by means of using a heat exchanger to transfer hot glycol to heat the domestic hot water and radiant hot water system. From what I can gather I should be able to supply close to 90% of my hot water and heating needs from solar in my part of the country. I was wondering if you had any comparable R values for ICFs ? Right now I'm only planning on using the ICFs for the lower level of the home which is half built into a hill with a southern exposure and using conventional 2X6 stick frame construction for the upper level . I have not been able to identify the manufacturer of the ICFs used in the basement. Also, does anyone know of any sources for solar heating equipment and can anyone identify the band make of these ICFs so I can get some specs for them?
Stonefox

 

[Stonefox]

another picture

 

[Stonefox]

one more

 

[Yankee]

"I bought a property about a year and a half ago in which the original owner had started to build the home with ICFs. He had gotten the lower floor ..."

I'd say his loss was your gain. It looks to be an interesting design. Best of luck with it. (and nice tractor)

 

[_RaT_]

Wow Richard. It looks like it's been poured. Did you get the set of plans as well? Any ideas on external finishes? Is that ARXX (Blue Maxx) ICF. ICF should be ideal in hot climates. I also have some ideas on some super lighting systems if you are interested. A bit pricey, but very nice and a real asset for ICF. I know much of New Mexico uses 3 coat plaster on the interior, is that your plan? I also have a superb plasterer from Santa Fe. He's done jobs for us bringing his whole crew to California. Best wishes with your project. It will be nice to have the tractor around during construction. Keep us posted. Mark...

 

[SPIKER]

stonefox: looks like you got a great start all ready for ya!..

Mark M

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

I'm thinking of ICF's for a basement with SIPS above ground. Maybe it's my old way of thinking, but I just don't know if I'm ready for concrete walls above ground.