</font><font color="blue" class="small">( trying to use radiant heat in the floor of a garage is like trying to warm bath water on the stove. It will take way too long for it to bring the garage to temperature that you would feel comfortable in. Garages are usually poorly insulated and the garage door isn't the tightest fitting door in the house. Add to that the concrete slab is usually poured over the gravel base without any insulation under it. Overall, I don't think that you would find it satisfactory for a garage. If you install the coils in the walls and ceiling, you are still up against the same problems... Poor fitting garage doors that usually will leak cold air into the space.
When I had my new insulated garage doors installed, I made certain that they were as tight as possible and that weather strips were used where ever possible. My garage isn't heated, and will stay about 38 - 40 degrees when the outside temperature is 10 degrees. I don't open the doors very often and I never let the door stay open for more that a couple of minutes.. )</font>
Junkman,
I guess I would have to disagree with you. As a mechanical contractor we are putting in floor in more and more garages everyday including bus shops, automobile repair shops and truck repair garages. And for no insulation in the concrete, everyone gets foam insulation under them. I have it in my garage and it is more efficient than any other heat out there even in a leaking garage. I keep my garage at 50 and I can go out there in a T shirt and work due to the heat constantly rising up over you. I can literally lay on the floor in a T shirt in a garage that is maintained at 50. The automobile repair shop next to our office has it and his door is opened twenty and thirty times a day and he never loeses temperature. More and more shops that come to us for quotes are asking for the wirsbo or in floor systems. If it was up to me, it is the only way I would go.
murph
