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Floor Heat layout

Eric H

Eric H

Well-known member
I am renovating a 30 year old 4 bay. As part of the renovation we are adding 2 bays and jacking out the existing heavily cracked floors. I elected to handle the floor heat myself and contacted the local plumbing supply house and Watts Radiant to get an icemelt radiant design. They came back to me with a layout the was 6" O.C. I then located a radiant layout from a wash I built in 2002 that had the tubing on 12" O.C. and asked the supply house to redo the layout using 12"oc but they said the would not stand by a design with 12"oc. They would do 9"oc but do not recommend it.
What is the standard O.C. layout for carwashes?
The other issue I was concerned with was the lenght of the runs being about 250'-283'. The other layout I have shows runs of 170'-186'. 250' seems too long to me but I am no expert....
I don't think that Huron Valley or Carwash Boilers will make a design for me because I am not a distributor.
Should I run away or is 6"oc the standard now?
 
If you have a lot of cold, I would do 6". I have 12" at my locations, and am not real happy when the temps really fall, but folks are washing.
 
Not sure how cold you get but I have one at 6" and one at about 10". I would go with the 6". It will take less time and expense to heat and keep heated.
As for the length of runs I can't answer. I have a wash with 5 ss on one side of ER. There are 3 manifold boxes that are directly fed from the boiler which can reduce the size of the tubing run. Each box supplies about 1 1/2 bays. Box 1 sits between the last 2 bays from ER, Box 2 sits between the next two bays and box 3 is just outside ER. Each manifold handles about 4 or 5 runs through the bays.

I don't have it in my wash but have seen it installed to heat the ER floor too. hope this helps.
 
Eric,

I started a thread a few years back on using a demand heater for floor heat. It might give you some useful information.

http://www.autocareforum.com/showth...er-Heater-For-Floor-Heat&highlight=floor+heat

I have a 4 bay with 3 bays to the left and 1 to the right. There is a single manifold in the ER that distributes only one distribution line to each bay plus one in the trough. Total 5 zones. If you look on post 69 and 123, there are photos of my outside truck bay in snow storms (3 bays from the ER). The tubing is not any closer than 12" O.C. Probably more like 16".....The bays stayed ice free down to -16°....That is as cold as its gotten here since I did the install. Hope this helps...

BTW, my tubing is 5/8" and circulation is provided by a single 013 Taco pump....120v 2 amp motor!
 
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I will also add, the original install was done over 30 years ago and they used black water supply tubing. (Probably the only thing available at the time).Its not recommended today since it does not have the oxygen barrier....I have a picture I took in a heavy snow storm that shows the tubing spacing. I'll try to find it and post it here. The spacing may even be more than 16"....You can't make very tight bends with that black tubing.
 
2Biz said:
I have a 4 bay with 3 bays to the left and 1 to the right. There is a single manifold in the ER that distributes only one distribution line to each bay plus one in the trough. Total 5 zones. If you look on post 69 and 123, there are photos of my outside truck bay in snow storms (3 bays from the ER). The tubing is not any closer than 12" O.C. Probably more like 16".....The bays stayed ice free down to -16°....That is as cold as its gotten here since I did the install. Hope this helps...

BTW, my tubing is 5/8" and circulation is provided by a single 013 Taco pump....120v 2 amp motor!
Click to expand...

This wash has/had 4 bays with a center equipment room. I do have the original hand drawn tubing layout from when I replaced the floors at an identical wash back in 2001. It shows a manifold in each bay with 4 zones in each bay and 1 loop for the front 5' apron and another for the rear 5' apron all 12"oc.
This layout keeps the floors snow and ice free except from a few hours during a blizzard when the snow drifts into the bays.
I think I am going to give Huron Valley a call today and see if they are willig to work with me.
 
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