Radiant Floor Heating/Cooling
Radiant Floor Heating/Cooling
(OP)
I was curious to see if anyone has encountered the problem of developing a underfloor heating/cooling system for a building or home and dealing with vapor condensation of out door air within the cooling space.





RE: Radiant Floor Heating/Cooling
Radiant floor cooling will require treating any outside air that enters the space so it is BELOW dew-point. Dew-point in my climate is around 55F. I have seen it and had to fix it.
RE: Radiant Floor Heating/Cooling
RE: Radiant Floor Heating/Cooling
If the water temperature climbs too high to do active cooling this means that the humidity in the space is too high. Fortunetly you should now have additional capacity in your chiller for use in dehumidifying the space.
RE: Radiant Floor Heating/Cooling
Specific applications might be school use or residential where water stains on the walls and roof would be a huge NO NO.
RE: Radiant Floor Heating/Cooling
If you go below dewpoint, moisture will condense on the floor.
RE: Radiant Floor Heating/Cooling
TTFN
RE: Radiant Floor Heating/Cooling
One key fundamental issue you have to keep in mind is that radiant heat transfer is very different from convection (air) heat transfer and you cannot equate the two. "Air conditioning" is just that- "air" conditioning, while radiant heat transfer works by direct heat transfer from your body to the radiant surfaces around you. Radiant heating and cooling is a sensible temperature control function and any latent control has to be done by the air system (DOAS).
I've designed many radiant cooling, as well as radiant heating/cooling systems, and it is a well known and widely used system in many parts of the world.
RE: Radiant Floor Heating/Cooling
I think it is viable when you can get it to work with fluid temperatures above the ambient dewpoint else it is a disaster waiting to happen.Bet most places that use it do not have much more than say a 60F ambient dewpoint to deal with.
Specialized outside air equipment etc goes down and its raining inside.