Will air heated floors work in a northern climate?
Hello everyone, first off thanks everyone for the great website and content. It is extremely helpful for someone like myself who is trying to gain knowledge/education about energy efficienct buildings.
We are starting to design a new home, which will be located in The Yukon, Canada. We are planning on building a insulated slab on grade, with in floor heating. We are looking to build around 1600-1800sqft.
We have a 5 acre property, which is perfectly suited for a south facing building. It has a large flat clearing that already has a brand new 3 bedroom septic and electricity installed on a farm service. We are leaning towards a shed roof design, with detached garage. The "Canmore East" house is similar to the design route we are headed.
Hopefully I have painted a bit of a picture of our project. I have many questions, but I'll start things off with the slab. Can anyone tell me more about air heated slabs vs hydronic? I understand hydronic is able to carry more energy in the medium, but also like the idea of having a system that only has air moving through the slab.
I have followed the building project from EcoHome with the air heated slab, but was wondering if anyone had any reviews of the system a year after? Also, being located in The Yukon, I'm hesitant as I may have to foot the bill to have a representive of Legalett brought up for the approval process?
Much appreciated, Matt.
Hi Matt, we're happy to hear you’re finding what you need on the site. So about your first question, air heated floors are just as effective and reliable as hydronic radiant floors for heating your house. This page explains the differences well –
Air heated radiant floors vs hydronic, which is best?
We’re happy to help with all your questions, best to put them on individual threads to keep topics straight, so we will start with your slab questions. You are correct that air does not carry as much heat as water does, but it doesn’t need to. A hydronic floor will heat up a bit faster, but there is really no need to be turning it up and down anyway so that’s not something that happens every day. Both can maintain even levels of heat, but the air floors can actually do that better since they don’t overshoot temperatures due to the amount of heat in the water when the system shuts off.
Legalett slabs are a bit thicker at 8 inches rather than about 4, so there is more thermal mass for holding the heat over the course of a day, and just like hydronic systems it will top itself up as needed. The heaters are sized to provide the necessary heat for a given space in a given climate and the company takes care of that. You don’t need a rep to come visit your site, just go here to get a quote on a legalett slab and air heated floor.
We don’t have data yet on the solar air heated floor, but depending on your hours of available sunlight and how far north you are its hard to say if that’s really worth the investment for you rather than putting that investment perhaps into a heat pump instead to reduce energy consumption. Pop any follow up slab questions here, we’re happy to discuss.