Radiant Heated Floors over a crawl space in a kitchen

11 years ago

Does anyone know if electric radiant heated floors will warm up my kitchen which is partially built over a crawl space? We added a 200 sq. foot addition to our kitchen 18 years ago. It is over a crawl space. The kitchen has been cold ever since we did that. We had insulation blown into the crawl space and the exterior wall of the addition. New furnace was put in a few years ago and we replaced all our windows in the house. It has helped to a degree but in the cold winters, I still need to use an electric heater in my kitchen. Now 18 years later I am about to remodel my kitchen and add on another 100-150 sq. feet. Since I'm redoing the floor, now would be the time to consider other heating options. I read a lot about electric radiant heat and also radiant heat with water. I know that the heated water option involves a lot more upfront cost and also I believe I would have to raise the floor to accommodate it? Is this just overkill for my additions? Would an electric radiant heated floor do the trick or is that only good in small area? I know many people use it for a bathroom but my kitchen is rather large. I would hate to put in one option and then still feel cold. Yet I don't want to overkill the situation either. Can anyone give advise? I can give the actual dimensions of my kitchen. The original part of the kitchen is over my basement. Just the 200 sq. feet are over a crawl space.

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Comments (3)

geoffrey_b
11 years ago
I have installed electric floor warming heat in both baths.

And that's what it is: floor warming. I think it would be expensive (electric) to heat the room this way.

The better solution is to figure out why your kitchen is cold, and fix that situation.

Here is a link that might be useful: Warm Wire
susandumond
Original Author
11 years ago
Thank you for the response! from what I read, heating the floors will be a lot more expensive with electric radiant heat as you stated. I also thought that it would only really heat the floor and not solve my situation but I wanted to hear that first hand and not make my own assumptions.

I think the reason my kitchen is so cold is that when we built our addition, we built it over a crawl space in 1996. My husband built it with the help of his brothers. We don't have heat going into the crawl space itself and at the time, he only put the pink insulation inside. Since then, we had someone blow the insulation onto the walls of the crawl space. I don't think insulation can really do the trick. I remember hearing on one of the home improvement shows on TV that the crawl space should be heated to help with a similar situation (I think I heard that correctly). In order to do that, I would have to go through the finished side of my basement to reach the crawl space. Not desirable. I do have a friend that has put in radiant heat using the tubes with water running through it heated by a boiler. It was worth the investment for her because she lives in a quad and was basically trying to heat her lower levels of the house. She also used this type of heat to heat up a patio/sunroom that doesn't have any other form of heat in it. It really works. I, on the other hand, have small area but I'm so uncomfortable in the winter. I guess I can get a quote with heating with water and a boiler to see how expensive it will be.

It still is strange that a 200 sq. foot addition would be that tough to heat
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HU-646584481
5 years ago
Radiant floor heat has had minimal on my heating bill and makes the rooms in the house built on a concrete slab inhabitable. Before was way too cold