If you are going to put in-floor heat in the basement of a new house, I would suggest you consider it for the main floor also. There is a product called gypcrete which is a lighter weight gypsum based concrete which I used last year. In the original plan there is an extra 2x6 under the walls to provide for the 1-1/2" thick gypcrete over the heat tubes. Here are a couple pictures I posted some time ago of it being put in. In the last picture there are 2x4 sleepers in the area that got a wood floor surface. The area without the sleepers has a porcelain tile surface. The gypcrete and tile also add a lot of thermal mass. This system stores enough heat so that it qualifies for my utility's interruptible electric rate and it is hardly noticeable it when they shut the geo heat system power off for 3 or 4 hours at peak load times. One caution - the installers did not clean the gypcrete off the tops of the sleepers sufficiently for the wood floor to sit right. They had to come back and scrape the sleepers clean to the wood. Much easier to squeegy them clean initially before it sets up. Wood floor is then nailed to the sleepers. Very comfortable uniform heat. Here are some pics. In the basement I would use 12" porcelain tiles on the heated concrete and area rugs where you want them. Good luck. Jim at Dawn edit: since you are interested in the basement, I will add a picture of pouring the basement floor with insulation, heat tubes and rebar on chairs. If you do this make sure they compact the rock base under the 2" foam insulation and plastic vapor barrier and also add a thermal break around the perimeter of the floor slab between the floor and wall and footing. You will want to break the floor into zones so you can control the flow and heat differently to different areas of the floor. This is a walkout also.
Edited by Jim 11/4/2012 10:33
(IMG_3808_gypcrete going in without sleepers - first layer.jpg)
(IMG_3812_gypcrete with sleepers on left at about 2 hours and without sleepers on right after 2nd layer.JPG)
(IMG_0538 pouring basement floor with heat tubes.jpg)
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IMG_3808_gypcrete going in without sleepers - first layer.jpg (68KB - 156 downloads)
IMG_3812_gypcrete with sleepers on left at about 2 hours and without sleepers on right after 2nd layer.JPG (46KB - 112 downloads)
IMG_0538 pouring basement floor with heat tubes.jpg (64KB - 112 downloads)
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