I am building (another) polebarn for my Buicks. Has anyone utilized radiant / floor heating? The tubing/ piping is under the concrete slab and utilizes hot water from either a boiler or hot water tank. Michigan winter is coming and I am looking for good/ bad vendors for this newer technology. Thanks, Upstaged in Michigan
Back in a former life, I owned an alternative energy operation in Connecticut called EarthPower, Inc. We sold and installed wood, coal stoves boilers, solar panels, wind generators and products designed to heat a concrete floor mass from 1979-1990. Back then we and lots of others were installing this type of system. In my opinion it is definately best to install a boiler as mentioned. Heat up that concrete mass and the heat is starting at floor level. No waste there. I would also encourage you to use a constant flow water pump with a 4 way control valve run by a thermostat. This way the water is flowing all the time through the system and the thermostat opens and closes the 4 way valve to mix hot and cold water to give the exact temperature you want at all times. Never will there be a hot floor and then a cold floor until the thermostat calls for heat again. Sometimes there is warm water flowing and somtimes hot. Also the heat will rise so if you install couple ducts from floor to ceiling with small fans in the bottom of the duct, you can pull the heated air off the ceiling and back to the floor. We used to sell boilers from Denmark that ran on wood, coal, oil, gas or electricity. You don't really need all that but a multi purpose unit will allow you to burn wood if it is convenient and the oil will come on automatically when the wood fire goes out. Sorry about that. I just remembered all this stuff and got carried away. Just some ideas.
