When It's Too Cold...

With these Vortex, Clippers, Blasts and such that come around, it seems that the weather service does very well at the Early Forecasting for them.

If one w/ a radiant slab would pay heed to these forecasts and pumped up the mass temperature ahead of time it would go a long ways towards getting through those peak demand times. Being frugal w/ that storage/mass can come back to haunt.
Radiant guys have something the others don't...big storage in that mass in the floor.

Hi Kungar, we need some more information.
From what I've read in your posts, the house won't get warm enough, and you suspect that the carpet over the heated floor is insulating the floor from radiating it's heat..

We need to know what the boiler temperature is at it's output, and what the water temperature is returning.

Where is the water temperature tempering valve ? What is the water temperature you are circulating in or under your floor ?? Usually under floor water temps are at around 110-120*.. but there is no reason that you can't turn up the tempering valve and pump 130-140* water under the floor.

BUT: IF the boiler is unable to keep up and maintain boiler water temp, that is another COMPLETELY DIFFERENT issue.

So: if you need to raise the floor temp to get more heat through the carpet, just turn up the tempering valve temp.

AND why not just fire up the natural gas furnace during these really cold nights ?? you are only going to have ?? a $50-$100 gas bill, much less than buying and plumbing in a water/air heat exchanger.. ??
Is your house able to stay at 70-72* when the outside temps are in the low 20's ??

Greg L

Greg I run 130F and it is 120F return through the loops. Each manifold has temp gauges so it is easy to monitor. Because I have a mix of flooring , wood, vinyl, carpet, and tile I really don't want to boost the temp. Kinda afraid I might damage something. Yea, maybe I will just run the gas furnace during those times as the radiant keeps up fine down to 15F. I do have LP now but plan to change over to natural sometime this year,'I guess these unusually low temps have some of us questioning and thinking hard about what could we do different.
Thanks

Not Boosting the slab temps??? Every 1 degree the slab is raised is a huge number in btu's.
Couple degrees will not be detrimental to any flooring...don't be scared.
The idea is you will be taking out those extra BTU's faster than they took to put them in...you have an advantage...use it.

Good advice

push up the temp till the floor warps or cracks

There -- NOW you know how far you can "crank it up"

JUST KIDDING !!!!!

Wondered into a really nice house last night - "split system" HIbrid boiler - dwellign owner whining how his NG bill was 75 bucks too much this month and he couldn't walk on his bathroom tile because it hurt his feet -- IE too hot

house is 8 years old -- I replaced 5 out of 8 zone valves they were stuck OPEN .

Then went back to the bar!

Can you insulate anymore?

A whole lot cheaper and will provide more long term payback if you increase the right areas of the house.