[Strawbale] Sub Floor Radiant Heating

[Shody Ryon]

THe system you describe I have been planing in my mind
for about a year, but a thermal loft will likely work
better. I don't say that because  understand it yet,
but because I have faith that Laren has run the
numbers on this systems. He is proposing a loft with
2L soda bottles filled with water and $400 high
efficiency portable AC unit that thermal syphons air
through the house, heating and cooling the air. for
heating it is a heat pump using the heat from the
thermal storage bottles to concetrate. He is sugesting
8 or 9 different ways to use it, such as heating the
house in the morning while cooling the thermal storage
for afternoon cooling. Ina super insulated house, I do
not see the need to do this often, it is just that is
has the ability to do it. In the summer, it would use
the heat to preheat water. The heat could be directed
thru the tops of the floor joist bays for radiant
floor heat. I wanted to get away from A/C systems, so
I am not sure yet. It was hard to get my mind around
the idea of not plumbing things together. I think his
system will be easier to run on a daily basis, easier
to set up, much cheaper, and only has up side when
compared to other systems. His system might be able to
be modified to work without the AC unit, if that was
needed in the future, I think he is taking advantage
of the super efficiency of this very latest new low
cost AC unit. That along with super insulation which
makes any heating and cooling go along way. He also
specializes in little houses, though these ideas could
work for normal and large houses in a number of
different ways
As for using water as thermal storage, I think I would
need to use the basement almost full, for enough
thermal storage to heat the main level and second
story. I don't know how to run numbers for this, but
someone with very ruff values ran the numbers and came
up with that estimate.


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