In another bold move akin to the change from stick-frame to ICF walls, we’re going to be changing from a forced-air system to radiant floors.

The bad news is, putting a radiant flooring system throughout the house costs about 4x that of a forced-air system. But we made the change because of its high efficiency, extreme comfort (according to several sources who raved about their radiant floors), and ability to easily take advantage of solar heating, when we’re ready.

It’s also the kind of thing you really want to invest in at the time of construction, not after the house (and floors) are already in place.

Speaking of floors, that was one item we quickly struck off our list when trying to figure out how to rebalance the budget. Instead we’ll just live with the concrete/gypcrete floors until our finances can tolerate a little more debt.

The system we selected includes the Triangle Tube Prestige Excellence Combi Boiler within a 14 gallon internal indirect tank to provide the household hot water.

Since the house is air tight, we’ll also be adding an HRV (Heat Reclamation Ventilator) with an electric coil to moderately heat the air as it comes in to avoid the feeling of drafts.

We’ve asked the flooring people to provide the Mechanical designs that will be required to obtain a building permit. The Mechanical design should cost around $900-1200 for our project.