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Heating a Concrete Condo from the Ceiling - in Vancouver

Thomas Beyer

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My wife and I are about to purchase a condo in Vancouver as a 2nd home, possibly a future 1st home. It is a concrete building. The heating is an air based, ceiling based system. This is OK in my opinion for A/C as cold air falls, but warm air rises .. so my concern is that my head is warm but my feet will be cold.
Many condos in Vancouver are 2nd homes, so it could be that my neighbor below is away and his heat is off.

Thus my concern is that the floor might be too cold !


Is this a rational concern ?

Would you advise to install heated floors (at a substantial extra cost .. now or after move-in) ?

Would you advise to not install lime stone floors, but carpet or hardwood ?

Do you live in a concrete condo and can share some experiences / issues ?
 

EdRenkema

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QUOTE (thomasbeyer2000 @ Jan 14 2009, 08:20 PM) My wife and I are about to purchase a condo in Vancouver as a 2nd home, possibly a future 1st home. It is a concrete building. The heating is an air based, ceiling based system. This is OK in my opinion for A/C as cold air falls, but warm air rises .. so my concern is that my head is warm but my feet will be cold.
Many condos in Vancouver are 2nd homes, so it could be that my neighbor below is away and his heat is off.

Thus my concern is that the floor might be too cold !


Is this a rational concern ?

Would you advise to install heated floors (at a substantial extra cost .. now or after move-in) ?

Would you advise to not install lime stone floors, but carpet or hardwood ?

Do you live in a concrete condo and can share some experiences / issues ?


A legitimate concern, I get cold feet no matter what!
My condo in Kimberley has a poured concrete floor with radiant infloor heating, very nice. The only drawback is when you want to turn it up quickly, it doesn`t work that way, find a comfortable temperature and leave it. It is however backed up by a gas fireplace for instant heat when necessary. The floors are carpet and that tends to insulate not conduct and/or radiate the heat upwards, I think hardwood or laminate would be better.
 

Nir

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Dec 5, 2007
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I live in a concrete condo and have lived in 2 other concrete condos since 2000. 90% of the winter days my heating system is off. I don’t turn it on because it is warm enough without it due to the amount of heat coming from all directions except the windows (other units, hallway, heating system even when it is closed). An apartment in a condo is better heated, in my experience, than a single family home for example.
To prevent dry skin however, I do recommend using a humidifier in the winter if humidity is below 50%. I use a humidifier about 33% of the winter days.
You will probably not have any heating issues. Regards.
 

cmattric

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Dec 24, 2008
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Most of the commercial buildings have overhead heating and cooling. It will not be a big issue unless the BTU of AC is low. If you let me know your AC`s BTU I might able to help you


Cmattric
(Civil Engineer)
 

SamEfford

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Thomas,

You can get an electric radiant heat system that mounts in your ceiling and radiats heat downward. I cannot remember the name right now, but I will find it and let you know.

EDIT: Try this link: Ceiling Radiant Panels
 

Lucas

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QUOTE (thomasbeyer2000 @ Jan 14 2009, 09:20 PM) My wife and I are about to purchase a condo in Vancouver as a 2nd home, possibly a future 1st home. It is a concrete building. The heating is an air based, ceiling based system. This is OK in my opinion for A/C as cold air falls, but warm air rises .. so my concern is that my head is warm but my feet will be cold.
Many condos in Vancouver are 2nd homes, so it could be that my neighbor below is away and his heat is off.

Thus my concern is that the floor might be too cold !


Is this a rational concern ?

Would you advise to install heated floors (at a substantial extra cost .. now or after move-in) ?

Would you advise to not install lime stone floors, but carpet or hardwood ?

Do you live in a concrete condo and can share some experiences / issues ?


Hi Thomas,

a) Heated floors below a floating floor (ie. electric pads below and engineered hardwood) wouldn`t be that expensive to install after the fact depending obviuosly on the product you choose and the square footage.

b) If this is the case wouldn;t the suitre below you heat your feet...unless you are a main floor unit. The beauty and the beast of condos...especially concrete buildings...is that once they heat up, the heat is fairly uniform and it stays awhile...not so good if you don;t have A/C in +30 C and it makes it difficult to control the heat in your unit.

In my experience, the one thing you DON`T have to worry about in a condo is getting cold!!!

Congrats on the purchase!!

Lucas
 

eskilover

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Jun 8, 2008
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Thomas,
Having been involved in building thousands of condos in the last 30 years, I would concur with the majority of posts, having enough heat is almost never a problem with a condo. I would speculate you have a heat pump that supplies hot air or cold air as you need it. The nice thing about these systems is you should have the option of adding humidity to the air. Although you might not have a problem with too little humidity in Vancouver like we do here in Alberta.
Anyway, good luck with this and congratulations,
Randy Christenson
 

Bottlejack

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Oct 29, 2008
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I have lived in a concrete condo for two years. Before i moved in, I installed slate floors in the kitchen and bath, and choose to install 3/4 inch engineered hardwood with foam underlay in the all other areas. The condo is a little older (28 years) with electric baseboard heat. The first year the slate floors were pretty cold, the hardwood was not as bad, but not warm. In the first year the unit under me was empty. This past year the unit below me has been filled and the floors are not near as bad. To this day I wish I installed an electric heated floor in the bathroom and kitchen as it allows the room temp to be a little lower. I think it would help for resale, and if there is no one in the below unit it would be nice to have the option to have a warm floor. There are also many people that shut there heat off if they know they are not going to be home all day as they know the units around them will keep them warm. One other thing that might be different my windows are really bad, and the winds can be pretty bad (come off the lake).

Eric
 

jcab256

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Jan 21, 2009
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My experience, is that the the floor you are on plays a part as well. I had an appartment on the 21 floor, and we never turned the heat on as it was never needed. - and this is with some frigid Winnipeg winters.

A friend on the 15 floor in the same biulding did have to put the heat on for the colder days, but that was still only for 50% or so of the winter months.

Jay
 
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