[Strawbale] Sub Floor Radiant Heating

[Robert Tom]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:11:35 -0500, Ilan Ungar <adrihalut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Derek Roff wrote: "But a well-built, well-designed home in your climate  
> may not need a radiant floor heating system.  With a good passive solar  
> design, you
> will need little backup heat."
>
> Thanks Derek. Wouldn't that require lots of tripple glazing at the South
> with heatsinks absorbing sunlight etc? In that case, wouldn't that  
> require backup heating after a single cloudy day?

Sorry, I haven't had a chance yet to trace this thread back to its roots  
but I can tell you that in my locale (about 8750 HDD/yr) in the middle of  
winter when it's cold enough outside to freeze the nuts on an iron bridge,  
the insulated/non-auxilary-heated floor slab in my home will be barefoot  
comfortable during the day and well into the evening. I don't care if the  
slab cools a bit overnight because I'm upstairs in bed.

And that's without there being any other auxiliary heating of any sort all  
day in the house (and sometimes for several days and nights in this age of  
Climate Change and California-like winters here).(In the past I took some  
infrared thermometer readings of the floor temps (and walls, ceilings,  
misc dog parts etc) and posted them to this List (probably under the  
subject heading "Stupid Human Ray-gun Tricks" or such-like)).

That is to say, much as I hate to agree with the Derelict, it appears that  
I do.

And that is to say, that while tinkering with active solar gizmos for the  
purposes of space-heating may be entertaining, I think (based on dogs'  
lifetimes-worth of direct experience) that such systems are largely  
unnecessary in well-insulated and competently air-sealed homes in all but  
the most hostile (climatologically-speaking that is, not bullets and  
bombs-wise) environments.

-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada
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