The fact that you already have a shop floor is not a problem -- I've
seen this done on two different home shows in the past few months, and
at least one or maybe both times, they were working in new homes, but
laying their tubing on top of a concrete floor. Seems like we're all
starting out just fine, having a concrete floor. The concrete like
substance they pour over the tubing is very watery, and they only pour
it maybe 1 - 1.5" deep it looks like, since the tube looks like about
0.5" ID. All I'd loose would be an inch or so of ceiling height -- no
big loss. I'm guessing that it's expensive to get the tubing and
concrete installed, and I imagine the burner for heating the water
isn't cheap, either. They never seem to have any budget constraints on
those home shows.
Laying underneath a car, having the floor warm would be very nice. It
seems to me, though, that it would take many hours to heat up a cold
slab of concrete, so a heated floor wouldn't give me something I can
kick on to heat the place in 15 minutes. The timer someone suggested
sounds handy here.
BTW -- I leave near Seattle, where the winter isn't too harsh -- it's
above freezing all night for most of the winter. Sadly, I grew up near
Ft. Lauderdale, so I consider 50 degrees very cold. One thing we have
plenty of here is moisture, so the fact that furnaces don't like
sucking cold, wet air was a good thing for me to know.
----------
| From: Chris Meier <ChrisM@pptvision.com>
| To: shop-talk <shop-talk@autox.team.net>
| Cc: Phil Ethier <ethier@freenet.msp.mn.us>; Keith Kaplan;
| Larry Schuler <lrs@clark.net>
| Subject: Shop floors, was Re: Shop heaters
| Date: Friday, January 26, 1996 11:46AM
|
| Does anyone know loading properties of the stuff shown on those
| home shows? On an existing floor, you put down the tubing and a
| lightweight layer of a concrete like substance (haven't seen this on
| a show for probably a year, so the details are vague), then you can
| add a final flooring layer (typically tile). Could this kind of thing work
| in an existing garage? Like Phil, I have a similar issue, existing 2 car
| garage, only mine is attatched, and the stalls I want to add would be
| on the front end (double deep), so the future shop floor is already
| in place. I'm wondering if the material used (or something similar)
| in the house can also be used on top of an existing concrete floor
| in the garage (potential higher loads per sq inch, exposure to various
| spillable substances).
|
|