How long does it take to warm up your house with radiant in-floor heat?

[canfossi]

Those of you who have radiant in-floor heat on a tile floor, how long does it take to get your room or house to warm up to a comfortable level when you turn up the thermostat in the morning? If it's just below freezing outside. On average, would it be 1 hour or 2 hours or 20 mins? Mine seems to be a bit slower in warming up from what I can remember compared to last year, it's taking 2 hours to warm things up. Would scale from hard water be slowing the efficiency down, I have hard water 14 grains for a year (since I the in-floor heating was installed) I am now getting a softener put in, it's long overdue. Thanks Chris

[susieM]

Wouldn' it be cheaper to just turn the thermostst down really low at night?

[nwbound]

when i install them I tell people set it and forget it. Meaning set it at your temp and leave it alone. 3-4 days later it will be right

[ericjeeper]

You do not play the up and down game.. set it and leave it.. With INSLAB heat.. you are talking of mass.. it stays warm.
Our great room is 22x40.. I can have the heat off and have 10 guest the room wil go from 70-80 within a couple of hours. So the best way to figure on radiant heat is to set it and leave it,
I like my house warm..Warmer than my 43 year old wife,.. Hot flashes,,, So do not wear a sweater when you come to visit..I keep it 78 degrees..year round.
My floors generally when it is cold out only call for heat early in the am.. Every room has its own thermostat, each room has its own loop .. so one room can be 68 the next one 75. and so on.. I keep the garage 75.melts the snow off.
Of course I have an outdoor woodboiler..and I have more free firewood than you can shake a stick at.

[painterswife]

I agree. Radiant Heat is meant to stay at one temp.

My inslab heat only cycles on once or twice( when really cold and no sun) a day. It comes on usually middle of the night and floors are warm and toasty when I wake up.

[Selena]

I have an electric mat under my tile floor, 2 rooms only. You can program the thermostat and the floor 'learns' how long it takes to hit the desired temp. I leave one floor on economy and the other floor goes up 5 degrees for an hour in the morning. I did learn I need to be patient when first turning it on for the season (first year we've been in the house) as it takes a bit to get going.

[tallpines]

Our water is heated by an outdoor wood burner and the heat put out through the radiant floor fluctuates.

The consistancy of the heat, at our house, depends more on the consistency of the fire rather than the setting of the thermostat.

DH fires up in the morning but it can take awhile for the floor (and house) to warm up. (About an hour.)

And then when it fails to warm up, after a couple of hours, I first realize that the "all-day" fire never got off to a good start-----------and so, when I'm already cold, I need to bundle up and go outside where its even colder to "stoke" the fire.

I will be glad when DH retires in a few months, 'cause he will be available to tend the fire more regularily.

A couple years ago we added a gas fire place and I love it for taking the chill off until the radiant flooring heat catches up.

[Maura]

You are really not saving any energy by changing the temp with in-floor heat. It takes much longer to loose heat with radiant than it does with forced hot air, and takes longer to reheat. So, you are making your system work harder in the morning, rather than less hard all day. Just decide what temp you want and keep it there.

[canfossi]

Okay, I'll start to keep it at the same temp. Boy, you guys/gals are full of great advice. Thanks again Chris

[rambler]

Sometimes we are only full of it.....

Floor heat works on thermal mass, & does not respond so well to changing temps. You would likely need to play with it a long time, to realize you could cut the heat off about 6 hours before you want the temp to drop; then crank it up 6 hours before you want the temp to be raised again.

Wonderful heat, just not good for needing quick temp changes.

--->Paul

[farmmaid]

Yup...set it and leave it alone!

[Ed K]

It takes my system several hours to heat up initially

If you're trying to save a few nickles you might want to try a constant setting below what you were used to with forced air. Last year my setting was 69 deg F. This year however I'm trying 67 deg F. I do notice the difference but it's still more comfortable than my old forced air system set at 70 deg

[Ohio dreamer]

It takes about 3 days for the 2000 sq foot (3 floors) to heat up about 15-20 degrees we rent here. We have all tile floors (hate them) with the basement and living level having huge south facing window-walls (love them!) which will turn the heat "off" when the sun come out. If we every build we won't put the thermostat in the sunniest room in the house! Makes for very cold bedrooms and bathrooms on sunny days.