mrincredible said:
We have a steam boiler. From what I read in that article this is not something I want enough to commit to the kind of time and money required to pull it off.
I am kicking myself a little bit now though. We had our sunroom floor replaced with a nice looking composite. I could have easily put down a few electric mats on the subfloor but I was in post-house-purchase tightwad mode and couldn't bring myself to do it. With the cold weather we've had lately I would like to send a time travelling email to myself in September that it would be worth it. That room be cold.
Chicagonative said:
mrincredible said:
We have a steam boiler. From what I read in that article this is not something I want enough to commit to the kind of time and money required to pull it off.
I am kicking myself a little bit now though. We had our sunroom floor replaced with a nice looking composite. I could have easily put down a few electric mats on the subfloor but I was in post-house-purchase tightwad mode and couldn't bring myself to do it. With the cold weather we've had lately I would like to send a time travelling email to myself in September that it would be worth it. That room be cold.
You are in good company. We decided to skimp on the radiant flooring when we renovated our bathrooms. While we can live without it, it's currently the season that reminds us how cold a bathroom floor can be first thing in the morning.
Well replacing the windows in that room solved the problem. It was nice and toasty even in the chilliest winter months. Glad we didn't waste money on that radiant flooring!!!!!
That being said, the kitchen was freezing.
We did love the radiant heat in the floors of our bathroom in the West Orange house, but it was electric mats under only one layer of mud and tile. I doubt it would be any use through more than one layer of flooring plus the subfloor. Too bad, though... it was an interesting idea!
Bikefixed, the funny thing in your 2nd floor bathroom is you seem to have a hot water line for the heat and the sinks going across under the floor, so you end up with partial radiant heat anyway!
Count me in the group that redid a bathroom and didn't do this. In our case, I had never heard of it until shortly AFTER we did the job. It was DIY and I'm pretty sure my spouse knew about it but didn't mention it as an option - grrrr! We have another bathroom in our house as well as kitchen which may someday get redone and I'm really hoping we can do this for those rooms. But that assumes we actually undertake the project.
I think a lot of people only know about the kind that uses pipes and hot water, which is quite expensive to install. The electric mat ones (like installing an electric blanket under your floor) are very inexpensive to buy and easy to install, from what I saw when we had our bathroom done. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
PeggyC said:
I think a lot of people only know about the kind that uses pipes and hot water, which is quite expensive to install. The electric mat ones (like installing an electric blanket under your floor) are very inexpensive to buy and easy to install, from what I saw when we had our bathroom done. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
It would have been SOOOO easy for him to do this when he ripped out the old floor and put down new subflooring and then tile ... sigh!
This Old House usually has an answer: http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/article/0,,20163505,00.html
PeggyC said:
I think a lot of people only know about the kind that uses pipes and hot water, which is quite expensive to install. The electric mat ones (like installing an electric blanket under your floor) are very inexpensive to buy and easy to install, from what I saw when we had our bathroom done. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
its a trade off-- while the electric is inexpensive to install its much more expensive to operate - we went with hot water based as we just have the expense of the hot water heater ( gas vs electric) and since all of our water rooms (kitchen and baths) have it there is allot of efficiency and little impact on our monthly utility
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We are shortly going to be performing a ceilingectomy in our dining room to address a number of problems - plumbing, electrical and the poor condition of the ceiling itself. It's right below an upstairs bathroom with a lovely old tile floor. While it's open I would like to see about putting subfloor radiant heat under the bathroom.
Has anyone done this from this approach? I know about the electrical mats you can install under flooring on top of the subfloor, but this would be having access from the bottom going up.
A quick internet search yielded too much information for my short attention span. I was curious if someone has actually done it this way and can offer pointers.