Hydronic heat - infloor vs baseboard?

[PNW_Steve]

Hey Everyone,

My intention was to have infloor hydronic heat powered by my Webasto and engine coolant.

I am approaching the point where I need to get my rough floor installed. I need to cut the channels in the floor installation to accommodate the Pex in the floor.

Unfortunately, I have not nailed down my layout yet. I am stuck with waiting to move forward until I get my layout done or finding an alternative to running the Pex in the floor.

I have been considering using baseboard hydronic heat instead of infloor.

Any thoughts on this? Any suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[o1marc]

Are you using it to heat the bus, or keep your feet warm? Most of my walls are covered with cabinets, beds,etc. I ran mine about 3' wide right down the hall.

 

[PNW_Steve]

Are you using it to heat the bus, or keep your feet warm? Most of my walls are covered with cabinets, beds,etc. I ran mine about 3' wide right down the hall.

Heat, including warm feet.

What has me flummoxed is that I am considering a side isle instead of a center isle and I want heat in the bathroom.

 

[somewhereinusa]

I have both. Works really well for warming up fast from cold. I have a zone for each room. More or less, floor heat is in the center walkway but where ever there is more floor, that loop goes under where the floor is, under desk, under dining table, under shower.
Each room has a heater with a fan in the loop with the exception of the front room driver area. There are 3 heaters in that area. One is the original heater/defroster with the other 2 pointed at the driver.
Generally from a cold start I turn on everything to get things warm. Then if it's above 0° outside I turn off all of the heater fans the floor heat maintains quite nicely. If below 0° I sometimes turn on a fan where I am for just a bit more. ( I tend to be cold all of the time)
Note, floor and walls have extra insulation, I haven't gotten around to the ceiling yet.

 

[Ronnie-SKO]

Just out of curiousity has anyone used the old cast iron house radiators with a wabasto? A friend of mine thought that would be nice in our bus and has some I could have. And I do have a wabasto laying around.

I tend to have hot feet, so heating the floor is not something I have given any serious thought to.

I like baseboard heat from a comfort view. No drafts, just warm gentle heat, and no noise. I also have to think it would be a real mess to repair an in floor heating system.

 

[cadillackid]

im a huge fan of floor heat AND fanforced heat.. SOmewhereinusa has it perfectly down.. floor heat makes you feel warm but it takes a while.. and you dont want to over-temp your floors. fan forced heat will warm things up quickly or bolster floor heat if you are in really cold conditions..

-Christopher

 

[Drew Bru]

Just out of curiousity has anyone used the old cast iron house radiators with a wabasto? A friend of mine thought that would be nice in our bus and has some I could have. And I do have a wabasto laying around.

I tend to have hot feet, so heating the floor is not something I have given any serious thought to.

I like baseboard heat from a comfort view. No drafts, just warm gentle heat, and no noise. I also have to think it would be a real mess to repair an in floor heating system.

I dunno man, but it would be pretty badass if you could pull this off. I'm not sure I'd own a house that didn't have cast iron radiators and hot water heat ever again. No forced air for me! You've got the DrewBru stamp of approval :biggrin:

 

[TJones-SKO]

im a huge fan of floor heat AND fanforced heat.. SOmewhereinusa has it perfectly down.. floor heat makes you feel warm but it takes a while.. and you dont want to over-temp your floors. fan forced heat will warm things up quickly or bolster floor heat if you are in really cold conditions..

-Christopher

This is what I am planning on doing. I'm going to reuse the original underseat heaters, adding a lower cfm/ wattage fan to run off the house batteries. The coolant will loop from the engine or Espar through a domestic water heater then the underseat heaters and lastly to the underfloor heating.

Ted