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Obviously I'm gonna check with the pro's but wanted quick feedback first........ owner says this house's radiant heating is working as intended, when it is on you can not use domestic hot water (e.g., no hot water in sink/shower etc.). She said it's only intended for night-time use because for this reason...
never had a home with radiant heating - true, or BS?
Obviously I'm gonna check with the pro's but wanted quick feedback first........ owner says this house's radiant heating is working as intended, when it is on you can not use domestic hot water (e.g., no hot water in sink/shower etc.). She said it's only intended for night-time use because for this reason...
never had a home with radiant heating - true, or BS?
To summarize call out a specialist in radiant heating for the configuration you have in the home you wish to buy. Did you call out a specialist to review the system?
This is NOT how any sane heating contractor would install a system !
This smacks of a TERRIBLE job done by a rank amateur -- I would worry that LOTS of other DIY nightmares lurk. Get a good inspection ASAP, and be prepared to have a long lost of "I can't tell sure for sure is this 'wrong' but sure ain't 'textbook correct'..."
Seriously I would worried that if they have plumbed in something so critical as radiant heat to destroy the ability to take a shower, wash dishes, do laundry the house would be uninhabitable many days.
That sounds really odd to me. My parents' house has radiant heat and it is a closed system that runs off its own boiler. ITA on getting a thorough inspection with a GOOD and reputable inspector.
I have radiant heat with a natural gas fired boiler that heats the water. The hot water is degassed and then circulated through the hot water coils in the floors, set by thermostat. The boiler also contains a coil, through which potable hot water is circulated and then stored in a separate hot water storage tank that looks like a hot water tank but without a heating element. It is a great system, completely conventional, installed by certified plumbers who knew what they were doing. We have all the hot water we could ever use. We frequently have three showers going when we have guests and have never noticed a drop in hot water temperature or supply.
It sounds to me like the house you are looking at was a do-it-yourself homeowner project that has likely made the house unsellable. Don't buy it!! You never know what other surprises you will find after you close.
I'd hope the water for the radiant heating is not the same as for the rest of the house. I've got radiant heating and there is a chemical they mix into the water to prevent the pipes from rusting.
To summarize call out a specialist in radiant heating for the configuration you have in the home you wish to buy. Did you call out a specialist to review the system?
Thanks Escanlan, and others, for the insight. Since the owner balked at paying for an HVAC guy to do a thorough eval, I walked away from the house. It's an owner-architect who did a lot of DIY to cut costs... but the house is beautiful architecturally, even if it was done "on the cheap" - not worth the headaches in the end tho'
According to the owner, the forced air system supplies the "main heat", and the radiant heating is just an ancillary feature to be used at night when nobody wants to use water. Thermal imaging also showed no movement of the radiant heat in two rooms. They offered us 5k to make the contract "as is" instead of dealing with the repairs - this is a home built in 2005, and it looks like owner did a lot of DIY stuff and is also selling without an agent... so I doubt the house will sell at the current price. I'm thinking of wandering back into the picture in a couple months with a much lower offer to take it "as is".
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Did you actually see the seller's nose grow????
