Hybrid floor and ceiling radiant heat

[69gp]

Thought I would post about my heating system in an existing garage that I then added to. The original garage I built 30 years ago had no heat. Walls were just studs. I have since added a large L shaped addition to the old garage so that I can park my RV inside and my lift. On the new garage floor, I installed radiant heat over Crete-Heat expanded polystyrene (EPS) floor insulation boards. I wanted to heat the old section of the garage and decided to go with radiant in the ceiling. Was not sure if this was going to work but it was something that I needed to try. I have R45 in the ceiling between the garage ceiling and the rooms above. I then added a radiant barrier and then the pex with aluminum flat plates screwed to a 2x4 so that the flat side would be pushed against the blueboard ceiling. The system works better than I thought and am happy with the results. I do have 4 circuits for the floor and 2 for the ceiling off of a 6-port manifold. I do have the flow for the ceiling heat throttled down as this gets warmer than the floor timewise.

 

[69gp]

Addtional pictures

I keep the garage at 55 during the week and kick it up to 65 on frday morning so its warm for the weekend.

 

[jack stand]

Very nice! A portion of my house that is exposed plank and beam below has radiant in the ceilings also. Much simpler installation vs a gypcrete floor that would have been an alternate for me.
The comfort of radiant heating is impossible to describe to someone who's never lived with it.

 

[jblnut]

The comfort of radiant heating is impossible to describe to someone who's never lived with it.

This 100%. I’ve had a few buddies built houses and shops and haven’t wanted to spend the money on the foam/piping and added expense of in floor radiant heat when building. They’ve all said they wished they had after getting the buildings up and being in them for a while. “Your shop feels so much warmer” one guy said. Well yeah, your feet aren’t cold !!

 

[dscheidt]

One big advantage of radiant ceilings over floors is that there are fewer obstructions from furniture, vehicles, whatever, so more of the heat is transferred directly to the space being heater. In many situations it can also run hotter water than the floor, which makes it suitable for spaces that need faster recovery/initial warmup, or are too small for the floor to make up the heat loss. it's also possible to put radiant tubing in walls, which is useful for existing spaces where replacing the floor or ceiling isn't practical or would take too much vertical space. (also, it's awesome in the walls of a shower)

 

[69gp]

Very nice! A portion of my house that is exposed plank and beam below has radiant in the ceilings also. Much simpler installation vs a gypcrete floor that would have been an alternate for me.
The comfort of radiant heating is impossible to describe to someone who's never lived with it.

Thanks. I don't mind working out there now as the temp is resonable

 

[69gp]

One big advantage of radiant ceilings over floors is that there are fewer obstructions from furniture, vehicles, whatever, so more of the heat is transferred directly to the space being heater. In many situations it can also run hotter water than the floor, which makes it suitable for spaces that need faster recovery/initial warmup, or are too small for the floor to make up the heat loss. it's also possible to put radiant tubing in walls, which is useful for existing spaces where replacing the floor or ceiling isn't practical or would take too much vertical space. (also, it's awesome in the walls of a shower)

I do need to do a bathroom over never thought of doing it in the walls. Going to look into that. I am really happy the way the ceiling heat has been working out.