Middlesex County, Ontario | What you are talking about is called in floor heat and it is a well established technology.
In floor heat cannot be used for cooling.
In floor heat generally doesn't quite (but almost) meets all your normal winter home heating requirements. You cannot get every floor and every room the same temperature with only in floor heat, it's just not possible to make that combination. You need some air occasional air movement and air exchange to temper things out. Where I live it's code that in floor heat cannot be your only/primary source of heating.
So you'd install a normal forced air air system for your AC and "primary" heating, and let the floor be your "secondary" heating system (that does 80% of your heating). The furnace doesn't need a burner, it can have a hot water radiator that's fed by the same boiler as the in floor heating. The same boiler can also heat your hot water system.
Since you're putting in forced air either way, in floor is an added expense.
In a shop where the acceptable temperature window isn't so narrow and you're really just happy to be out of the wind and not freezing, in floor heating can be the only source of heating. I'd still make the argument that an alternate source of heat can be a good idea to make up air temperature faster after a door is opened.
Edited by WildBuckwheat 1/23/2026 08:22
|
Plumbing/HVAC machinery
