First, let me say that I do not, nor do any relatives, work for Warmboard or have any other kind of relationship to the company. I'm just a home owner that used this forum over three years ago to find out about radiant heating and wanted to contribute back by writing about my experience with installing Warmboard.
We live in eastern Iowa (near Cedar Rapids). We lived in a house with 1,300 sq. ft. on the first floor and an additional 750 sq. feet of finished living space in the basement. We had a forced air gas heating system as well as a Mendota fireplace in the basement. With a special needs child in mind, we were looking to build a house with a better layout and some different features that would better fit our situation (zero-entry, open floor plan, enclosed stairwell....).
After about five revisions on a floor plan we started plotting out the build of a 1,950 sq. ft. house (1,750 in the walk-out basement). Because of our child we didn't want to use very much carpet in the new house but knew it would be cold on the feet during winter. I had little knowledge about radiant heat other than knowing a few people that had it in their cement basement floors. No one used it in their main floor heating, and no one I knew used it as their sole source of heat. So I hit the Internet and discovered a few conversations on this board about Warmboard as well as some other products.
After reviewing and reviewing the different products including staple-up, wet, dry, hydronic, electric, and so on, I settled on Warmboard. I made a call to them and had a sample kit sent out. With no one in area experienced in installing such a product I visited with my building and HVAC contractors individually. With panels that are considerably heavier than normal and require special cutting, I was concerned about how they'd take to it. Neither blinked and everyone knew it would be a learning experience.
After they put the flooring in and put up all outside walls and a few interior support walls, my son and I went through and vacuumed/cleaned out all channels of the Warmboard. The tubing was put in and tested. I then had them staple down a layer of 10 mill plastic over the entire floor and then the rest of the interior walls were put in over the top. Was I worried about puncturing? Absolutely. But everyone was well aware of the tubing and we had no problems. Before the flooring went in the plastic was removed and the channels vacuumed again to remove all debris. Flooring guy wasn't too worried and had no problems working around the tubing.
We moved in on Dec. 4, 2006 and instantly fell in love with radiant heating. We have three zones; bedrooms and main bathroom in zone 1; living room, kitchen, sitting room, and laundry room in zone 2; and zone 3 is the entire basement. Zones 1 and 2 are all upstairs and use Warmboard. Zone 3 has the tubing in the cement. The upstairs zones flip (bedrooms down/living room up) during the day and opposite at night. The basement is kept at 68 degrees all heating season long (my heat sink). We have laminate wood flooring everywhere except the main and master bathrooms with ceramic tile. How I wish we could have tiled the entire house because that warmth is much more noticeable on the feet in the mornings. If we go away for a few days and come back to cold house it takes the Warmboard upstairs a good 30 minutes to start feeling warm and can be at full temp by about 1.5-2 hours.
So we went from a 1,300 sq. ft house with 750 sq. ft. heated in the basement with gas forced-air assisted with fireplace (built in 1992) to a 1,950 sq. ft. house with 1,750 sq. feet also heated in the basement with all radiant (built in 2006). Our worse heating bill in the old house was about $130 for a month. So far, our worse heating bill in this house is about $155 for a month. Now I realize that there are many factors to heating two different houses, but we were quite surprised in the cost only going up that little amount.
Going radiant did cost me about $12,000 more than a forced-air system, but I have a very comfortable house. Nice not having that one bedroom or spot in the living room that is drafty. The floors can feel warm, but more importantly they aren't cold. In fact, the colder it gets outside the more comfortable the house feels.
Hope this helps those that are in that consideration phase... I remember it well. I'd do it all again if I had to start another house project and would recommend Warmboard.