Radiant Heat Cement Floor Water Pex Problems

We were told the only way to go was a wood engineered floor glued down.

Radiant heat cement floor water pex problems. 14 years later still in good shape and seems to keep house warm and comfortable. This article explains how to avoid some fatal mistakes when installing radiant heat in a concrete floor slab by describing an incompetent radiant heat floor installation along with an explanation of why things went wrong and how to avoid these errors. Pex is an acronym for cross linked polyethylene a plastic tubing installers use for hydronic radiant heating systems. While pex use for water supply systems has been widespread in europe since the 1980s it was a latecomer here because some early versions.

Properties that make a floor covering good or bad for radiant heating systems tend to center around the thickness of the flooring the flooring s thermal conductive nature its tendency to expand and contract and whether it is prone to water and heat damage. For concrete floor radiant heating systems the warm water tubing or electric heating elements can either be embedded within the slab on grade anywhere from the bottom of the slab to within 2 inches of the surface depending on the design and installation technique or fastened to the top of a concrete subfloor and then covered with an overlay. Radiant heating system design or installation mistakes that must be avoided. Pex tubing or piping is used for water supply lines as well as radiant floor heating.

We wanted a wood floor and spent a lot of time talking to flooring experts. Best flooring properties for radiant heating. How to install pex tubing for a radiant heat floor. Radiant heat can be an electrical heating element embedded into a very thin concrete overlay then tiled carpeted or have wood flooring installed over it.

There s been a lot of debate over pex for the last several years because pex has a few downsides that you might not expect. The workers in the photograph at page top where our concrete slab. In 1973 it has a concrete slab foundation with radiant heat water runs thru copper tubing within slab. Pex pipe remains popular for radiant floor heating.

This series article discusses the suitability of various tubing materials for radiant heated concrete floor slabs and choices of heat conducting fluids for radiant floors. If you only want to heat a bathroom or ceramic floor in the kitchen opt for a heating wire system located under the tiles. Our page top photograph shows polyethylene tubing being installed in a new concrete floor slab for radiant heat in a two harbors minnesota building. Here are some of the pex pipe problems you ll want to know about before making any decisions.