Hi all,
New subscriber here with a floor heat question..
A few years ago before I laid down my tiles, I installed PEX tubing for radiant, hydronic floor heat. I tied the tubing to steel construction grating, and covered my tubing w/ ~5-6 cm cement and sea sand mortar.This was on top of the existing 15-20 cm slab, which is well anchored to the ring beam. I did not insulate between slabs since I wanted to also get some heat into the basement below. IIUC, this is referred to as a "slab on slab" application. The tiles are ~5/8x11x11 inch terra cotta pavers. The area is about 80 sq. meters, fairly square with four zones. Walls are 60 cm stone.
My main question is this. In some of the literature, they recommend inslulating the perimeter w/ about a half inch of insulation, mostly to reduce losses into the side walls, (and possibly to take up expansion/contarction of the concrete?) Some other literature do not consider insulating the the perimeter.
I did not insulate the perimeter, and do not care about losses through the walls. I also did not add any fibers to the mortar which might have added some crack resistance. What I am concerned with is the possibility of "cracking" of the grout between the tiles, or even lifting of the tiles. :-(
Can anyone give some feedback on this. I will be using an olive kernel burner, that will mostly be on all the time, albeit on low temperature. Olive kernel is still quite cheap in Greece....
regards,
nikos