We are built a large house that the lower floor is half in and out of the ground. It is ICF R22 lower level and R30 upper level. We have a Geo water heater a Geo forced air and Natural Gas water heater. There are radiant floors in every level and room. We have lots of options to condition our house.

I have found that running natural gas is over 20% and closer to 30% cheaper then running the Geo for heat. Our POCO screwed the Geo market a couple years ago by swapping the winter and summer rates. Winter heating rate used to be a quarter of the normal cost of electricity in the winter and the summer was full cost. Now it is opposite.

Heated floors are pex in-bedded in 1-1/2 inches of concrete on upper floors and 6 inches of insulated concrete on the basement.

So last year we planted a lot of grass and I routed the well water for the grass through with radiant floors first. Our ground water temp is 50 degrees and living in Michigan with tons of water. We didn't run our AC all summer doing this. Usually when it is hot out and the grass needed watering, the house needed cooling. It worked really good. the house humidity got up to 60% by the end of the year so I added a radiator/fan to run the well water through first and dehumidify. This turns on whenever the 1/2 HP well pump runs. I am hoping to keep the humidity in check this year from the start. We didn't have any problems I am just trying to keep the house at 50% year around.

Hope you can use some of this info. Good luck on your project.

Would love to see some pics of your thin slab install. Pondering retro fitting my existing 1940 stick frame full basement house, and want to do thin slab for the thermal mass, thanks chris [email protected]

So I got a call back from Austin at WarmBoard, he didn't seem overly interested in working with me on my project.

He mentioned that the system would not work well when placed on the ceiling because of "physics", heat rises.

I mentioned that it was a radiant system, so in theory the heat should radiate and not depend on location, but he didn't agree.

So I guess a blessing and a curse, I did like that option but I suspect that it will be one of the more expensive avenues.

I guess for now, I'll cross WarmBoard off my short list.

http://www.tesmar.com/html/radiant_floors_vs_radiant_ceilings.html

I agree with everything written there

Yes, ceiling and wall panels can be a great way to accomplish hydronic radiant (HR) heating/cooling. We can confirm that Messana makes a very nice product although rather high on the expense meter. Messana is an European HR product and the Europeans have been doing HR better than here in the States for a very long time. I got my first taste of HR comfort while living in Munich Germany in the mid 1970s.

We have been doing ceiling, floor and wall HR panels for about 10 years using the John Siegenthaler methodology. LoopCAD/HeatCAD are our favorite HR design tools and working with Brad McCrea from Avenir Software is a pleasure. You might find the free DIY HR calculators and associated instructions on our website educational and useful too:

Borst Calculators

I fully agree with the Tom Tesmar article that Icfbound provided including that HR concrete slab floor heating is often preferable, lower cost ($1.31/sqft) and higher performance, to heat transfer plate ceiling and wall panels and is more comfortable for bare feet in bathrooms. I will also say that our personal residential design preference is single level ICF with concrete slab floors, either on-grade or floating above-grade on a 3/4 minus rock and pea gravel engineered pad. There are lots of detailed construction photos of our personal shop and residence on our website in the About Us tab.

As you indicated, HR cooling is all about keeping the HR emitter surface temperature slightly higher than the dew point temperature to avoid condensation and the potential for mold growth. Please also be aware that there are temperature and humidity limits that can't be exceeded if you will achieve adequate cooling performance. We have done HR cooling for commercial and some large residential applications and we have used Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) to accomplish the required control functionality. Since most of our building designs incorporate both passive solar heating/cooling and HR heating/cooling, PLCs are a great solution which provides the often necessary control flexibility for addressing the unique aspects of each building’s design. If you are not familiar with PLCs, I did an introductory discussion of this subject for GBT about 5 years ago:

GBT PLC Discussion

If you decide to do HR walls, you might find the Michael Frerking (a CA architect) approach that I mentioned on GBT a while back to be something to consider too:

GBT Form Free Building System Discussion

Anyhow, you are clearly doing your homework well and I have little doubt that you will be successful. Best wishes with your project and for a happy holiday season and new year!

A great wall air conditioner systems represented in this guide, you can look through and pick what you find suitable for your needs.