Quote:
Originally Posted by CaberTosser
I'm a big proponent of heated floors, just be sure to insulate well under the basement slab with 1 1/2" or 2" sheet foam.
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One trick I did was to also isolate the slab from the foundation wall by putting a perimeter of sheet foam around the wall prior to pouring the floor, so there's no thermal bridging anywhere.
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This is the system I installed in my own home (yes, I've pimped out this photo on here many times before...  ) :
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I did not insulate, but did lay a good bed of crushed gravel under the slab. My thinking was that since there is no moisture or thermal movement through the very dry solid clay under the gravel and the ground temp is a constant @~55F, and since heat rises, any heat that leaks under the slab will just warm the gravel and clay and it will all form part of the thermal mass. I did not insulate between the floor and the walls because I wanted all the concrete to be part of the thermal mass. I did insulate the full height of the outside of the walls with 3" styro plus 1.5"x2' @ 45 degrees at the surface.
I have poly piping @ 12" centers in the slab and heat it with a wood fired low pressure low temperature boiler. I use a single Grundfos circulating pump feeding 4 loops. My plumbing is no where near as complex as yours and is best described as fully manual controlled. It takes some long fires to heat the mass in the fall but then much less to maintain through the winter. I often do not light a fire on a sunny day.
My Grundfos circulating pump (which draws .7amp) is the only part of the system that depends on Hydro. I would like to add a circulating pump that runs on 12VDC, which I could power with hydro through a transformer-rectifier or with standby battery power.
Does Grundfos make a small circulating pump that runs on 12VDC?
Can you suggest or recommend another manufacturer that makes such a pump?