Construction Design-Heated Floors and Floor Coverings

Best Choices and What Should Be Avoided

One of the first jobs I had when I started my career in the construction industry, back when I was working as an electrician, was installing electric resistance heating cables for a basement heating system.  It took two people, one person pulled (me) while a second person pushed (my brother) and guided a small manual plow which installed electric heat cabling just under the surface of a sand layer.  Concrete would then be poured over the sand; the result would be a heated floor.  As it turned out, there was a high percentage of cable failures with this system, which resulted in many people having to install a new heating system.

Hot water radiant heat in a slab on grade home.

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Construction Design-Using Fibrous Sub-Slab Insulation with In-Floor Heat

I’ve written about sub-slab insulation and heated floors several times over the past couple years, this post is about something I’ve been thinking about for a while now, using a fibrous insulation, like Rockwool’s ComfortBoard 80 or 110 under a concrete slab with hot water heat.  The questions I had about this strategy are one, will there be an issue with compression of the insulation when concrete is poured over the product?  And two, will a staple be able to hold the hot water tubing in place?

Rockwool ComfortBoard being installed below a concrete slab.  Photo by Travis Brungardt

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