An odd question perhaps~

[Franz©]

It occurrs to me I've seen epoxy type seamless flooring since 1967, going back to the original Torginol floors. It was an amazing product back then, especially when I saw the 1000 gal± that sat in the middle of a floor the morning it was discovered an underground water line leaked.

I also notice a lot of yall are putting it on garage floors, and somebody on here must be using it on a heated floor.

Now, it's just flat fact that plastics don't transmit heat well, I sure proved that with my inside storm windows made from 1/10 lucite, so I'm wondering how the floor heat works out when seamless flooring is installed on the floor.

 

[bmwpower]

It occurrs to me I've seen epoxy type seamless flooring since 1967, going back to the original Torginol floors. It was an amazing product back then, especially when I saw the 1000 gal± that sat in the middle of a floor the morning it was discovered an underground water line leaked.

I also notice a lot of yall are putting it on garage floors, and somebody on here must be using it on a heated floor.

Now, it's just flat fact that plastics don't transmit heat well, I sure proved that with my inside storm windows made from 1/10 lucite, so I'm wondering how the floor heat works out when seamless flooring is installed on the floor.

I dont have floor heat, but I would imagine the thickness of it makes the barrier to heat negligible. We'r talking mils here...not realy thick.

 

[mike944]

Yes, plastics don't transmit heat well, but since epoxy is applied in such a thin layer, the effect of this should be negligable at least compared to the concrete.

Concrete has an R-value of approximately .08/inch. Figure the radiant heat tubes are buried at least 2 inches, for an R-value of .16 for the concrete.

I couldn't find a direct R-value of epoxy, but a manufacturer of "insulating paint" claims a K-factor of 0.15 W/(mK) Doing the units conversion to R-value equals an R-value of .96 / inch. That means, that for roughly every 1/16" of epoxy, it's the same as burying the radiant heat tubes an inch deeper in the concrete.

Now, 1/16" is a LOT of epoxy. Most floor epoxys are much thinner than that. (100% solids paint would require 10 gal for a 1-car garage, to build up to 1/16") Now, some of the really, really expensive, high-build coatings for industrial floors can be up around 1/8". If you have one of these, it might make a difference, but for most of our coatings, i can't see how it would. Keeping in mind also, that the K-factor i found, was for a manufacturer claming specific insulating properties for his paint. Figure a paint not designed for insulating properties would be higher K (which means a lower R, since they are the inverse of each other)

If somebody a little more familiar with heat transfer wants to double check my math, i converted .15 W/MK to BTU.in/hr.ft2.F by multiplying by 6.94, and then took the inverse of the result to get R-value. I fould the conversion factors about halfway down this page http://users.aol.com/JackProot/met/spmisc.html