Radiant Floor Heating in Master Suite Addition

To comfortably and economically heat this addition, radiant floor heating was chosen as the heating source. The heated floors were found both in the bathroom under tile and in the bedroom under the oak hardwood flooring. With radiant floor heating different zones can be set up for different rooms. The bathroom and bedroom each have different digital temperature controls so that the rooms can remain at different temperatures. Typically radiant floor heating systems operate either by circulating warm water through a network of pipes placed in the floor or electric resistance wiring placed in the floor. For this project, hundreds of feet of cross linked polyethylene piping was fixed to the subfloor and a thin light weight concrete slab was poured over both the piping and the subfloor. The heat source used to heat the water was the existing boiler for the home. Engineered I joists where used as the floor system, they were filled with blown in fiberglass batts and R-10 rigid board insulation was installed below the I joist system in the crawl space. The homeowner has found that stepping onto heated hardwood or tile floors to be very comfortable.