Post by dguisinger on Mar 19, 2012 9:25:59 GMT -6
I'm looking at purchasing SubRay for my basement floor. The slab does not appear to be insulated.
The instructions make it appear as if I don't need a subfloor between SubRay and the concrete slab, however it says to ask Watts when it comes to needing insulation.
Does anyone have recommendations? My problem is height. Parts of the basement have a 7 1/2 foot ceiling, the thicker the radiant floor, the lower the ceiling becomes. Its also a walkout basement, and the top of the sliding door threshold is about 1 1/4" above the concrete which complicates things even further. I'd rather be below or even, vs significantly above the door slide.
I was looking at a under-concrete bubble foil product from EcoFoil. where the bubbles are on the outside and the foil on the inside. It appears in their diagrams to also be used in radiant on existing floor designs, though I'm concerned how stable it will be with the sleepers, since it is a bubble design. I would hate for the sleepers to rock and cause my tile to crack.
(I have looked at Watts WarmWire, but for 600 sq feet estimator website said my annual electric bill would be $1600 a year just to warm the basement floor, not to even heat the basement!)
Also, it appears from the documentation that one of the recommended ways of installing a tile floor is to fill the tubing gaps with "mud". I'm assuming mud is referring to a standard mortar? I understand it would give me a thermal mass as well as provide stability to the tile floor above, I just want to make sure that when I read mud I interpret it correctly.
The instructions make it appear as if I don't need a subfloor between SubRay and the concrete slab, however it says to ask Watts when it comes to needing insulation.
Does anyone have recommendations? My problem is height. Parts of the basement have a 7 1/2 foot ceiling, the thicker the radiant floor, the lower the ceiling becomes. Its also a walkout basement, and the top of the sliding door threshold is about 1 1/4" above the concrete which complicates things even further. I'd rather be below or even, vs significantly above the door slide.
I was looking at a under-concrete bubble foil product from EcoFoil. where the bubbles are on the outside and the foil on the inside. It appears in their diagrams to also be used in radiant on existing floor designs, though I'm concerned how stable it will be with the sleepers, since it is a bubble design. I would hate for the sleepers to rock and cause my tile to crack.
(I have looked at Watts WarmWire, but for 600 sq feet estimator website said my annual electric bill would be $1600 a year just to warm the basement floor, not to even heat the basement!)
Also, it appears from the documentation that one of the recommended ways of installing a tile floor is to fill the tubing gaps with "mud". I'm assuming mud is referring to a standard mortar? I understand it would give me a thermal mass as well as provide stability to the tile floor above, I just want to make sure that when I read mud I interpret it correctly.
