Radiant floor heat with cooler

[operatorextreme]

If I put radiant heat in a 70 x 50 slab but in the area close to the center of the slab will be a 34 x 14 walk in cooler. The cooler floor will be the slab floor. The cooler will be a studded out rectangle and well insulated. it will also have cooling equipment that would be over kill. The cooling power will be there if needed.

Ok do I just run the tubing in the floor and exclude the area of the cooler? Can I somehow use insulation in the concrete to keep as much heat as possible away the concrete under the cooler? Maybe with a well insulated cooler and good equipment it wont matter?

Thanks

 

[Stuart in MN]

I don't think it makes any sense to heat the floor under the cooler, you're just wasting energy. However, will the cooler always be in that same location forever and ever? If it's something that may be removed at some point in the future, you could maybe run a loop of tubing under that area, but just leave it disconnected for now.

 

[operatorextreme]

I dont see the cooler being moved. My concerns would be the cooler floor absorbing heat from the parts outside the cooler. I want more efficiency in the building than in the cooler

 

[pstnbly]

Don't put tubing in he area of the cooler. If it were me I would thermally isolate the area of the slab where the cooler will sit with a ribbon of 2" XPS. You must remember that radiant heat works in the infrared spectrum and heats objects not the air. The slab converts IR into thermal heat in part but the objects in the cooler will also be exposed to IR converting it to heat.

 

[operatorextreme]

If I understand correctly cut the xps to stand on edge? How close to the top of the concrete?

 

[Norm01]

is it necessary for your cooler floor to be level with the slab at the door. If you don't mind a step, I would put a sub floor in the cooler and use XPS as a thermal break between the two and the just let the cooler sit there.

 

[mygarageone]

Unless the cooler will be moved , no heat under that area !
Or put that section on a separate loop for the future and valve it off.