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The Work of Art and The Art of Work Kiko Denzer on Art |
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[Cob] RE: Solar radiant floorAmanda Peck ap615 at hotmail.comMon Jan 24 08:58:41 CST 2005
Never tried this, so I'm guessing. any or all of several possibilities. a) Sand has some nice properties. If it's small and pretty uniform it will protect the radiant tubing from cuts and deformation. Can be leveled for the floor above it. May have some desirable heat transfer/storage properties as well. Drains, doesn't wick. b) Soil, by contrast, may wick water up from the ground. If it's clay, or good organic dirt, you've probably got better uses for it than letting it sit under the house. If it's silt, not much structure--goes from hard beyond belief to something with the texture of slip without any problems. c) Not at all sure if you want your floor at ground level, and the plumbing BELOW it. I do like houses on not more than a slight rise from the ground, but I live in an area that gets saturated soil easily, parts only dried from pre-Christmas rains and floods this weekend. There may still be some water perking through the soil down at the barn--or will be as soon as it thaws. There's been a thread here about moldy linseed oil floors. Humidity from above or water from below? I don't know, but I wouldn't want to chance it. ................. Peter wrote: >--- I guess I'm missing something - why sand ? Why not just dig down as far as necessary, lay in the "plimbing" and put back the earth you dug out in the first place ? I don't see why one would go to the effort and expense of removing that earth and replacing it with something else. From my seat it sounds like an unnecessary complication, so if there is some convincing argument for the sand approach, I would be interested in hearing it... Peter _______________________________________________ Coblist mailing list Coblist at deatech.com http://www.deatech.com/mailman/listinfo/coblist
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