Floor heat in slab

[Jimdril]

Am thinking of adding on the back of a house, which is on a slab, for a 12 x 18 workshop, located in the Chicago area. Someone mentioned running pex in the slab, to be heated by a 30 gal water heater. I'd appreciate any info/experience with this system.

 

[Randy in Maine]

How do you heat the rest of the house?

 

[Jimdril]

Gas forced air in the slab.

 

[Randy in Maine]

In that case I would just insulate the slab with 2" of foam and duct in some forced hot air as its own "zone".

Full disclosure...

My woodshop is a 12'x 28' section of my 40' x28' garage with radiant floor heat. Good dust collection is really required as the area is pretty tight. I also have 2 windows in there and sometimes I need to put my Vornado fans in the windows to keep the air moving out of the woodshop portion.