I am ready to build a 12x16 workshop and want to use solar radiant heat in the wooden floor. After a few hrs on the web I have one question I need answered. With solar air heat it can create it's own flow without a fan. Can solar water heat do the same? Should I just build in a solar pump too ? This is nothing fancy , just sandwiched floor w/tubing in the middle and homemade water heater , no guages or switches , just to keep the chill out cheaply.The reason for water instead of air ,water will keep heat longer after dark (or so I hope).

 

Your best bet is to consult with one of the manufacturers. I bought my PEX tubing and manifold from Radiantech. Call them up and they'll answer all of your questions and do the computations too.

 

You may want to consider a concrete floor if possible. It will hold the heat alot longer.

 

Here's a start:

http://www.homepower.com/files/olson84.pdf

There's some other good articles there. It's a magazine, so they sell many of the articles; however, if you go to files and downloads from the home page - there are some freebies.

To answer your question, yes. Water works something like air and it's not always a good thing. The optimum place for your water storage is above the collector, since heat rises. Most of the time the collector is on the roof. It can be hard to retrofit a heavy water tank on the peak of an existing roof, but if you plan for it in your design now....

Also, check out your used bookstore. Many of the books written 30 years ago still apply today.

Before getting too much into water, (or should I saw hot water..), give air convection heating another look. Many of the pitfall came from trying to retrofit an existing building. Since you are building new, the opportunty is there to easily incorporate the air ducting and stone/brick in there now.

 

Thanks for the responses.I would have to get a building permit to do a concrete floor and i'm already pushing the size limit to not get a permit.That link sounds familiar I'll check it out.

 

Well it's always best to consider all possibilities. checked out your link HOWDY and in wondering around from it I found a solar air system that says (?) it will work as an airconditioner also.Thanks.