In this Warmboard Works, Jeff Persons of Geo Source One Inc. talks to us about his renovation of the “Rock House”. Located on property obtained through a land grant from the American Revolutionary War, the home was built while the area was still Indian Territory. Rather than tearing the home down, the structure was maintained and underwent an extensive renovation. The structure is entirely radiant heated and has a total of 8 zones to maximize comfort and control.

“We are geothermal systems contractors, and geothermal equipment is a perfect match for Warmboard. We’re strictly low temperature hydronics folks here, we don’t get into a lot of high temperature type situations. Because we’re working with high-efficiency condensing boilers and so forth, it’s important to keep those temperatures as low as possible.

Warmboard has been excellent to work with. It is the very best way to utilize geothermal equipment for managing a radiant floor particularly when you’ve got wood frame construction.

Also, just the ease of tubing installation in a Warmboard project. I like being able to use the linoleum roller to press the tubes into the channel and follow things around; and it’s not difficult to route new channels to get from one area to another. The whole ease of working with the product really stands out to me, not to mention your team has always been excellent. I credit you folks with your patience with homeowners and architects that make changes and then the drawings have to be repeatedly changed. In some instances we’ll have revision 1, revision 2, revision 3, and every time it comes back and its perfect.

This is not our first rodeo with Warmboard; we’ve had others, all of them excellent. I’m about to make a trip back to Ohio to finish off another project that used Warmboard in several areas. I’m looking forward to that visit and getting that project off of our books to make room for the next [Warmboard] one.”

Geo Source One Inc. provides Columbus, Ohio geothermal products and solutions and are proud to be the full service provider for WaterFurnace brand products in the Columbus, Ohio community. Their geothermal resource center has a lot of information on the benefits of what the Earth has to offer. Whatever your needs are, routine maintenance, equipment repair, or a complete comfort system, their highly trained staff has the expertise to help. Let them install a geothermal solution that utilizes the clean, green, renewable energy stored in your backyard to provide savings of up to 70% on heating, cooling, and hot water costs.

geosourceone @ rrohio.com

www.geosourceone.com

Wilf Scheuer of Pro-Star Mechanical talks to us about a unique build on top of a mountain on Gulf Island in British Columbia.

“We’ve been quite happy with our Warmboard experience, had no issues whatsoever. It was easy to work with, and we’ve done a number of Warmboard projects. I think we may have done the first Warmboard ever in BC and we recommend it highly.

Warmboard was a good product for this particular job because it’s on a remote access Gulf Island. The project is on the top of a mountain above Mayne Island, so it’s quite cold up there as compared to being lower down. It took them five years to finish the job, but it’s a really beautiful architecturally designed home, the best views in the world I’ve ever seen. It overlooks the ocean, Active Pass, and the other islands.

So when talking to the client we gave different options and both the client and ourselves found that Warmboard was the best solution. The owner wanted a high quality system that was compatible with a geothermal heat pump because we drilled three holes 350 FT deep into the mountain.

With the combination of Warmboard, geothermal and the water furnace heat pump he’s got an excellent system that runs reliably and is economical. It’s economical to heat the home as compared to other fuel pipes in the Gulf Islands, which would normally be oil, propane or straight electric, so he’s probably saving 70% of heating costs as compared to traditional sources and it has really good performance.

We find that the heat is very, very even throughout the home and is quite satisfying. It has a lot of glass in there too so in homes with large amounts of glass it’s important to have good distribution systems for your radiant heat so that heat is applied evenly throughout the home so you’re not getting cold sitting by a window.

Overall, Warmboard seemed to be a really neat package that had good performance of heating; he liked the idea of a smooth floor, extra structure, and that he could use it for temporary heating even before the floor was finished.

Aside from the fact that Warmboard gives you very even heat, it seems to move the job along quickly. For the heating contractor it gives you a good guide for installing. The installation ease and performance of the product is superior to other methods like concrete topping or stapling underneath and insulating. With Warmboard you just have to snap the tubing in there with a rubber mallet.

We’ve worked with Uponor quite a bit and Watts, and in slab, under slab, under joist, topping on top of plywood, ceiling radiant, wall radiant, virtually every way of possibly doing it, and I think the Warmboard situation probably is the simplest and easiest… an elegant solution to radiant heating a home.”

Pro Star is a family owned and operated full-service mechanical contracting business dedicated to serving the HVAC needs of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Island communities with honesty and integrity since 1988.

Victoria @ prostar-mechanical.com
www.prostar-mechanical.com
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