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New garage going up!
sean_ork:
--- Quote from: Simen on October 26, 2015, 04:46:12 AM ---tie down some tubes (for water-heating) on the rebars on the floor before pouring the concrete - then you have the choice to use whatever you want as a heat-Source. :)
--- End quote ---
It's an uninsulated slab
MattM:
Thanks for sharing your garage experience. Looks solid and should serve well for as long as you're around.
Harold in CR:
Adding a couple of inches of styrofoam under the concrete would not cost that much, and then, the heated floor would work nicely. I did that to a house we built in Arkansas.
Piped hot water from the switched dump load of the 4 KW wind turbine I built. I put 2--2KW water heater elements in a 150 Gallon butane tank that was sitting on the concrete floor of the attached greenhouse we had. Radiant heat from that tank kept plants from freezing.
We had an automotive engine water pump hooked to a DC generator as a motor. Only ran that gen/motor for 10 minutes at a time. Never had "HOT" water, but, you could feel the difference after the turbine was switched to those heater elements. We were in extreme NW Arkansas in the Ozarks, 40 miles south of Missouri state line..
sean_ork:
Just a couple of inches ?
Generally it's 300mm here, and not just Styrofoam, it needs to be construction grade PU, with a compressive strength suited to the slabs use - and edge insulation is a necessity.
If there's plenty of surplus energy that would otherwise be wasted to a dump load, minimal insulation would suffice - loose wire trace heating within the slab is another idea.
Harold in CR:
:-[ Probably should have added, we built an earth sheltered house, so, mean ground temps were around 55 degrees. I consulted with the expert of a community college and was told, "Concrete will crush styrofoam". ::)
We put 4-5" of concrete on 2 layers of 1" styrofoam and wire mesh. . We just wanted to keep the floor from being cold. The pipes were used 1.5" galvanized pipe. Also, we had NO building codes to harrass us. If it wasn't for Lawyers, a LOT of this building code crap would not be needed. They constantly look for ways to suck money out of good products and uses.
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