What infloor radiant heating would you use in a corewood home design?

There are three main types of radiant in-floor heating systems that you will need to choose between, that is either hydronic (liquid), electric wires, or air-heated floors. The only way the wall system becomes a factor is in its R value and airtightness, and the amount of heat the floor will give off. An 18 wall is pretty thick, but Given the mortar and that wood is about R1 per inch it’s still not an extremely high R value (depending on where you're located). And cord wood walls are not very airtight, so you're going to need some juice in that system of yours if you want a cozy home. Building cord wood walls is not super common so I'm already full of questions - where are you building? Will you have power or will it be off-grid? What is your main heating fuel going to be - gas, wood, oil, electric? 

Whether you choose wires, hydronic tubes or air tubes to heat your floor, you’ll need to size the system to match the heat load. This following page about air-heated floors gives an overview of all three types of radiant floor heating systems –

A comeback for radiant floors heated with air tubes

Installing an electric wire radiant floor is something we have not yet done in any of our homes, the cost and complication has never really been appealing. But we have done many hydronic radiant floors, and most recently an air heated floor, which is fed with heat from solar thermal air heating panels. Here are videos on both of those installations.

Ecohome’s new demo house will be a slab on grade with Solar radiant floor heating powered by air tubes heated with air solar panels

Installing a hydronic radiant floor system in a slab-on-grade floor

The air heated floor may be an option worth exploring, it is provided by a company that designs and manufactures engineered raft slabs (frost-protected shallow foundation slab on grade). They are available across North America. Where are you located?

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