Heating Help

Radiant Walls

Does anyone have experience with Radiant walls?I've got a Log house I'll be starting next week and I'm thinking of putting it in the kneewalls upstairs in the loft.I was going to use Wirsbo double groove plates with horizontal strapping.Is normal insulation behind OK or should there be something more. Also does the vapour barrier go behind the strapping? Thanks Brian

radiant walls

if you need some info on radiant walls,leave me your address.i'm a retired radiant designer and have layed out a few that have worked very well

Calling ME on wall radiant

ME, I know you did some of these for HfH. How have they turned out? jerry

Excellent!!

I was just by there the other day for his annual service, and he said they'd been snug as a bug in a rug. We did wall panels that were four foot tall using the Wirbo double track aluminum plates, and used Oventrop Unibox TRV's for control to avoid oil canning. You MUST put insulation on the back side of the panel to control direction of energy flow. I'd do it again, but can't get anyone to bite:-) ME PS, Here are some schematic drawings nad links to the articles I wrote on this subject. http://www.contractormag.com/articles/column.cfm?columnid=151 http://www.contractormag.com/articles/column.cfm?columnid=159 http://www.contractormag.com/articles/column.cfm?columnid=169 Let me know if you have any questions. ME

Pic 1

Here's some photo's I've posted before. This one poorly shows the framing and boarding.

Pic 2

tapped and ready for prime coat

Pic 3

Finished wall

The radiant wall article

can be downloaded at: Click here to go there Scroll down until you find "Lean on Me" Mark, when you get a chance send some pics of your finest stuff. Thanks RB

That or...

keep the tubing lower than the usual picture hanging height as we did at the Habitat House. The HARDEST part of OUR job was keeping the volunteers with the SCREW guns away from our tubes. We made sure all tubing was installed at the exact same height off the floor, and then developed "story poles" showing the jolly vollies where they were SUPPOSED to put the screws to hold the sheet rock up. Not ONE near miss. It CAN be done, it just requires a lot of thought and planning, but what part of hydronic heating doesn't? ME

Plus, even the professionals can spear a PEX tube

... as you know, we have a radiant floor heating system in our home. When the time came to get the blueboard up, we made sure that all the infrastructure had been photographed in the walls and floors. Nothing but manifold piping runs in the walls, and the studs were marked too. One of the sheetrockers found a way to breach the floor system anyway, by resting a running screwgun on the floor... with the tip down. The breach was repaired quickly but I remain amazed how little those guys care about dropping screws, etc. even when they're at their best. Having said that, I'm delighted with the job the sheetrockers did... the house looks amazing and only one breach is a small price to pay...

Just be sure you don't nail the tubing when you hang your pictures!!!

Yes...great advice

an excerpt from the article... "The final concern was possible damage to the PEX tubing when the paintings were hung and potential harm to the artwork from the heated surface. To prevent panel damage the wall was blueprinted and photographed prior to boarding. All dimensions and details recorded in the Operation and Maintenance Manual for the next lucky homeowner. Paintings were backed with reflective insulation before hanging reducing both radiant and conductive transfer to the backside of the canvases."

Info on radiant walls

Hi Brian, If you head over to The Library and look under the old stuff on radiant - you'll find great information on how to design and install the old fashion way - which incidently still works today. rb