Staple Up and Wood Stove
Our recent home purchase has a previous owners DIY staple up radiant heat for the first floor kitchen, dining room and master bathroom. The creator did not use aluminum heat transfer plates just simple looped pex. There are bats of R-30 covering the system in the basement. However, the radiant floors really don’t do much in keeping up with heat in those room and the zones runs A LOT.
I also have a wood stove in the basement that puts out a ton of heat. Am I better off removing the bats to allow for more wood stove heat to transfer upwards? Remove the bats and put up heat transfer plates? Install the plates and leave r-30 in place? Some combination of these options?
any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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Replies
What water temp in those loops?
If you can find a good deal on retrofittable plates maybe worth a try, but that style install needs a higher water temp to be effective.
I would consider moving some air for the wood stove heat, maybe a stylish grate and a fan.
Gauges at the manifold read 160.
There are three registers through floor and we run a circulating fan in the basement.
To be clear no issue heating the house. Just notice that the floors with radiant don’t feel warm for the most part, wondering if insulation is preventing the most efficient use of the wood stove
Having heated floors that are not hot somewhat defeats the purse of them.
The usual issue with this type of install is air leaks. Cold air from the rim joits area flows into the gap between the subfloor and the insulation and the gap never gets hot enough. The heat from the pipes is still going into heating the house, just you don't get the warm toes feel.
Usually air sealing the rim joist (pieces of rigid foam sealed in place with canned foam) fixes the issue. You can also get some more BTUs out of the setup by installing clip on heat fins like Ultra Fin onto the existing pipe. Installing heat spreaders does work better but more labor.
What is the heat source for this? Lot of DIY uses the DHW directly which is not the best solution.
As for heat from your wood stove, I'm guessing there is no door between the basement and the main floor. If this is the case, the heat from it will get to the rest of the house through there, the bit of insulation under these areas doesn't matter.