Radiant Heat Options

 

JANIE: Yeah, we’re thinking about buying a new house or building a new house and so we’re debating what kind of flooring to put in it and we would like to put in the in-floor heating.

 

TOM: OK.

 

JANIE: But even with in-floor heating, there’s using Gyp-Crete or there’s putting the tubes right underneath the flooring or there’s suspending the tubes underneath the flooring. Which one is best?

 

TOM: OK. Well, first of all, are we talking about a hot-water heating system? Because that’s what we’d recommend.

 

JANIE: Yes.

 

TOM: Because electric heat is going to be pretty expensive out there in Wyoming. What I would think you need to do is you want to put the flooring embedded into the floor so you want to use a lightweight …

 

LESLIE: The heating embedded in the floor.

 

TOM: Yeah, that’s right. You don’t want it under the flooring. I mean, that’s great as an aftermarket solution if the flooring was already down but in new construction I would try to embed it right in the flooring; so the Gyp-Crete solution is good. And the type of plumbing pipe you want to use for this is called PEX – P-E-X. That stands, Janie, for crosslink polyethylene. It’s a fantastic product. It’s easy to use; it’s very flexible, very durable stuff and I would be totally comfortable putting that underneath my floor and not having to worry about leaks with it.

 

JANIE: OK. And then what kind of flooring should go over it? We’re thinking about engineered wood on part of it.

 

TOM: OK.

 

JANIE: Carpeting with the rubber padding instead of the normal padding. Is that OK or are we shooting ourselves in the foot doing that?

 

TOM: (overlapping voices) Absolutely. No, absolutely. A nice thing about this type of a flooring system is any type of surface floor is going to work – hard surface or carpeting. And those are all great choices. You know, the engineered hardwood is great stuff today; the finishes are really, really tough and it’s beautiful and it looks just like full-thickness hardwood but it’s a lot easier and less expensive to put down.

 

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Yeah, they’re absolutely gorgeous.

 

TOM: So, those are all great choices, Janie. It sounds like a really exciting project.

 

JANIE: OK. That’s what I needed. Thank you very much.