Dan Frawley
Let’s take the following situation: You own a home that you bought a few years ago and with time your family has grown to occupy all of the available space. Without building an addition or planning some drastic renovations, where can you look to increase the livable square footage of your home? For most people the answer usually is to renovate their unfinished basement to create additional living space.
Now that you have decided to take this step, how will you heat and cool the space? You could install ductwork if you have a forced air system, but that would require installing a drop ceiling that would significantly reduce the height of the room, and for a person such as myself who is 76 inches tall, that just isn’t going to work, we would hit our head all the time. For most people that is not the best solution.
The solution that most people decide on, the solution that will only shorten the height of the space by about three to four inches, is to install radiant heat over your existing slab in the basement.
This installation is not as daunting as it sounds. The first step is to ascertain whether or not the slab is insulated. Most installers assume that it is not insulated and move forward with their installs with that in mind. So for this article we will assume that your slab is not insulated underneath as well. Insulation between the radiant tubing and slab is essential so that you are not paying to heat up the slab underneath the tubing, which will just heat the ground. That would be an inefficient system and ultimately cost you more to operate.
The first step is to install 1-inch polystyrene insulation over top of the existing slab. After that is complete you are ready install the 5/8” thick furring strips that are 7 inches wide (any local home improvement store will be able to rip these pieces for you). It is important to note that if your basement is below grade then you will need to use pressure treated furring strips. Using tapcon screws to attach the furring strips to the concrete slab through the insulation. After the furring strips are attached you can install the heat transfer plates as you would for any overfloor radiant installation. Once the tubing has been snapped in place you can install any final flooring material you would like; i.e.: Hardwood, Carpet, Tile etc.
Radiant heat is the most comfortable heat delivery system available and can be installed by the weekend do-it-yourselfer. Retrofitting a radiant system in an existing basement is an easy way to increase the livable square footage of your home and to increase value. Plus, you will never have to sit on a cold sofa to watch the big game again.
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