I have mentioned before how we are not rich, we do not have boatloads of cash, and we are not able to buy everything new. We are an average single income family. My husband works, while I stay home with our two young children.
I have
also mentioned before how we are kind of doing everything backwards, with a lot
of shoulda’, coulda’, woulda’s being learning along the way. That was not intentional, that is just how it
has turned out.
What
do I mean by ‘doing everything backwards’?
Well, the second floor is further along than the first floor. More accurately, the first floor doesn’t exist
yet...our home kind of looks like a one level on stilts. Now you understand what I mean by doing stuff
backwards. Instead of building from the
floor up, we are building from the roof down.
Once again, that was not intentional, that is just how it has turned
out.
So far
it has been slow going, and now it is even slower. We are still doing stuff around the house,
just not in it. We are still gathering
firewood, and working on the yard, and a few other random things here and
there, but that is about it. We are
stalling. We are stalling until we can
come up with the money for our next big purchase...a poured concrete slab with
radiant-floor heating. Once we get this,
then there will be another huge building spurt!
Normally,
concrete radiant floors are installed before framing of the building begins
(but for whatever reason, we are doing things differently). A radiant floor system pushes heated water
from the boiler by way of tubing laid within a pattern beneath the floor. In particular systems, the temperature in
each and every space can be controlled by governing the flow of hot water by
way of each and every tubing loop. The floors
use the thermal mass and conductance of concrete to spread heating and cooling
and maintain a constant, even temperature.
Rather than heating the air, radiant floors warm objects.
Fundamentally
there are 3 varieties of radiant floor heating systems: electric radiant floor
systems, hot water or hydronics radiant floor systems (we’re doing this one),
and radiant air floor systems (the heat is carried by an air medium). Every one of these three varieties may well
be broken into smaller groups based on the type of installation: those that
make use of the big thermal mass of a concrete slab floor or gypcrete concrete
spanning a wooden subfloor (these are named “wet installations”) and the ones
where the installation of the radiant floor tubing is located in amongst two
layers of plywood or attaches the tubing underneath the completed floor or
subfloor (“dry installations”).
Radiant
heating has a number of advantages: it is more efficient than baseboard heating
and usually more efficient than forced-air heating because no energy is lost
through ducts. The lack of moving air
can also be advantageous to people with severe allergies. It is a silent and inconspicuous operation –
there’s no hum or whistle of a forced air system and you don’t see any vents. Hydronic systems use little electricity, a
benefit for homes off the power grid (like us), or in areas with high
electricity prices. The hydronic systems
can also be heated with a wide variety of energy sources, including standard
gas- or oil-fired boilers, wood-fired boilers, solar water heaters, or some
combination of these heat sources.
Last,
but certainly not least... aesthetics, uniqueness, and ease of maintenance are
a few more reasons why we want to do a stained concrete with radiant heat flooring
system. Concrete can be so uniquely
designed or so naturally colored that it blends seamlessly with other elements
in a room – oftentimes, you don’t even realize it’s a concrete floor you’re
standing on! Another desirable feature
is the ease of maintenance. Not only are
polished concrete floors easy to clean, requiring only occasional damp mopping
or buffing with a neutral pH floor cleaner, they also hold up extremely well to
heavy foot traffic.
Take a
look at some of these gorgeous floors – can you believe they are all concrete!
