With an ICF built frost wall can you install electric wire in floor heat cables and cork flooring?
I live in Nova scotia and doing a new build, I have a 6ft high ICF block constructed frost wall with 4 inches of rigid insulation giving me R20 laid over the vapour barrier, then Ouellet OWC-M series electrical heating cable laid under 4inches of concrete and I will be on time of day rates so the concrete heats up at night. I have R35 in walls and R60 in ceiling
I am looking at using the 4mm cork tiles glued down with the bostik and finitec products you used on the Edelweiss house. Do you see any issues with using it with the electrical heating cables as compared to the method of in floor heat that you used especially as this is ICF construction? Now that the homeowners have lived with it for 5 years would they change anything about the flooring and will the ICF blocks on my build give any advantages compared to Edelweiss?
The type of heat source is less important than the temperature you will run the floor at and the type of flooring. A well-insulated house won’t need to run a floor as hot as a poorly-insulated house, this can affect how the flooring reacts. R20 sub-slab insulation is a lot better than the standard 1.5 inches that is often installed, so that will help.
When we installed cork tiles (see our DIY cork floor installation video here) we used a non-toxic adhesive for the tiles. Given that our Edelweiss House is extremely well-insulated and is also heated with an air source heat pump, we don’t run the floor often, or at very high temperatures when we do. But we did choose materials that were safe for install on a heated slab on grade floor.
After 5 years of use, the floor still looks great overall, but there are spots that are showing wear. In hindsight we may have gone with a more solid engineered floor but overall we are satisfied. See our page here on choosing the best flooring for alternatives. There are al types of engineered floors such as Maple, Birch, Oak, and you can find Cork engineered floors as well.
To take a look under the hood check out the definitive history of ICFs here..
Doesn't flooring on top of an ICF slab reduce passive solar heat absorption? Won't that ICF constructed frost wall have frost heave issues because it can't get any heat to it?