Plumber69
In the Trades
Slab infloor radiant floor heating. What do you you want the heat of the slab at your feet.
Do you want the floor to be 20 degrees or like 40Are you making a statement? Asking a question? Making a criticism? OR looking for information? IN any case it does not make much sense the way it is posted.
You would get better help from this site.. heatinghelp.com experts there will be your deciding factor.Unfortunately floor is poured with 2 1000 ft loops ran every 10 inches....is it worth trying to operate or should I just scrap it. At this point I'm only out about 500 bucks and about 16 hours of my labor lol
You would get better help from this site.. heatinghelp.com experts there will be your deciding factor.
You're going to have too much friction loss, that will cause excessive pump pressure, poor circulation and uneven heating.
If it is 20 degrees, any water spilled would turn to ice, or maybe you are making an indoor skating rink. 40 degrees would also be cold, and ridiculous. You want the temperature to be comfortable, and that can vary by user.
The hassle is, you can't move water through the pipe fast enough reliably such that it stays warm the whole way...that's why you really need smaller loops so that the water can stay warm enough throughout such that you get semi-even heating. If you can break the loops out so that they are shorter and more even (you'd still want the ability to adjust the flow through each with balancing valves), it should work.
The radiant effect typically can mean that you'll be warmer at a lower temperature than you would with forced-air systems. Given the thermal mass of the slab, it can take more than a few days upon initial startup to warm things, but from then on, it will be able to modulate and keep things comfortable. Whether it will be able to reach any specific temperature will depend on how well the place is insulated, how well it is air sealed, and how hot you run the water. There are limits on how warm you can make the water for both reliability and safety. On a green slab, you do not want to start out with the water being very warm...things need to cure a bit more and the excess water to evaporate otherwise, the heating strips will stress the thing and can cause cracking as it changes the curing rate along the heated lines.
Applying the highest heat to the coldest area is generally the way it is done that I've seen. But, trying to push any sort of flow through 1000' of (I'm assuming 1/2" pex) may mean literally no flow at all.
As an experiment, you could hook up a pump and see what kind of flow you get. I do not expect it will be all that much, and you need x gallons/minute to enable y amount of heat transfer based also on the delta-T (the difference between the slab and the water). You can look those numbers up...I don't have them memorized. If you needed antifreeze in case the system might end up off and it could see below-freezing temperatures, the heat transfer is reduced because of it - IOW, you won't get as much heat out of the system if it uses antifreeze verses plain water.
This is awkward, but...
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