Does anyone have any experience with Fred Seton and his radiant design service he calls Radiant Design Institute?

Nope. I have used a professional ME from Warmzone.com named Aaron or Adam. Super bright and interacted very well with my client. I can't remember how much he charges for a plan but it seemed reasonable.

Yes I had him design a system for me for $1000 for a propane system. later I changed my mind that I would like to use a geothermal heat pump for a heat source. He did respond to my emails however did  not answer my specific questions as to changes in loop length or spacing.  I do not if he is unfamiliar with this approach, wants more money, or just has a my way or the highway attidude. Today I talked to someone from pexheat.com who was very helpful and said this would not be a problem. Doing the tubing with the low geothermal water temp of 120  apparently works best with a concrete overlay over the wood subfloor. I guess I am going to have to look elsewhere for the answers I am looking for. If any one has information that they would share on a similar project it would be greatly appreciated.

120 is pushing it with geo. you really want to get lower temps than that... as long as you possibly can, with geo.

Todd, give me a buzz at XXX-XXX-XXXX (Phone #'s and email addresses are not allowed in forum posts) about your radiant project. We can help you design your project.

I have had much experience dealing with Fred Seton of Radiant Design Institute. Fred is a narcissist who has no problem telling people what they want to hear to get money or work out of them. He is always changing the name of the company to avoid a bad reputation. I worked/lived with Fred Seton and his wife Carol in Yak Montana for several months last year. After he burned me I found he had burned several other people as well. He has these great plan of having people invest time or money into a turbine. He plans on copying this turbine from another company and selling it with his boiler. He has no college education and from what I witnessed little hands on experience as he could not remember how to assemble the manifold(which he sells*professionally assembled*) and had to call an old employee to show me. His stoves seem to be the his best product. The boilers are very problematic costing hundreds to thousands of dollars each year to maintain. I know on his own boiler at his house there were a couple of times where a thermostat went bad it overheated and blew the line draining out several hundred dollars of anti-freeze and $100 per thermostat. Another time the vent got clogged open resulting in the same affect, this was just in the month that the boiler was in operation while I was there and its only a 2-3 year old boiler. There are many complaints of his design work not properly heating houses. I would be very cautious dealing with Fred. His favorite way to get people is mentioning God or how God just wants him to help others to come across as non threatening. I recommend doing your homework and finding a real professional in the field. I wish someone had mentioned the truth about Fred in a review or forum before he got me.

esger
About five years ago when I started my RH project; Fred's name came up first in line. A reply to a RFQ was a "package design" and a bill. No intermediate communications. Needless to say I ignored the bill and never talked to him again.
Fortunately I found NRTRob, Badger, and a host of others that set me straight.

Hey Vern, did you happen to know Marty by any chance?

Every good radiant floor heating design starts with a ACCA Manual 'J' room-by-room heat load analysis. Every radiant floor designer should be able to produce a sample of system they designed. The best will produce a CAD layout as well, proving they possess a radiant dedicated program.

Advanced training offered by Roth, Uponor, Viega and others doesn't hurt.

We are a licensed design/build firm in Minneapolis but anyone with the proper training and a good program can design and radiant ceiling, wall or floor for any building in any climate with equal accuracy.

I met Fred way back in 1999 when he rented a building in Libby MT from a friend of mine. He had installed one of his boilers infront of a roll up door, removed the window and stuck a pipe thru it and called it macaroni.....being assistant chief on the fire dept and the local stove guy, he asked me to stop in and check the place out to make sure Fred wasn't going to burn the place down......or turn the side of the building black.
Fred is a very interesting character, he showed me his boilers and how they worked and his stoves and wanted me to become a dealer. Not sure why at the time but the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up and a little voice said, "run!".
Long story short I have a rule, "If you don't have anything good to say, best not say anything"..... so I'll leave it at that.
What was interesting was Fred tried to sell me his company too. That time I did listen to that little voice. Thank God!
In the end I ended up with Fred's boilers through Pro Fab with a UL and EPA Phase 2 Certificate. At the time we were selling Pelco and Pro Fab so they contacted me with the offer to help them unload all the Greenwoods they had in warehouses. We liquidated a ton of them when Greenwood went out of business after Fred sold it the first time. I will say that the boiler design does work, if it is installed properly. It is unique in it is made from cast cement with a tube type heat exchanger that Fred also designed. We sold close to a 1000 Greenwoods for less than half that Fred was asking for his non UL none EPA listed boilers, which really hurt his sales. It was a cheap boiler that folks could buy when they could not, or rather spend more. I would say overall the the Greenwoods may have been changed just enough that they worked better. I don't know. I have very little experience with Fred's boilers after I realized I was working for free. Fred is well known for as someone else said, "my way or the highway".