I recently bought a home built in 1960 which is heated by hot water base board heat. I am currently renovating the house and am looking at the possibility of installing in floor radiant hot water heat for the second floor. I would install this in the floor joists in the basement before I finish the ceiling in the basement. The house had a new high efficiency electric boiler installed in 2005 for the hot water baseboard heat.

I am wondering if installing hot water radiant heat would be more efficient on my electric bill every month. I live in Northern Manitoba where heating efficiency is important. We currently pay $0.061/KWH for electricity.

Another issue is that the seond floor has one inch tongue and groove board topped with a plywood subfloor with carpet on top of that (there is not underlay with the carpet). Would this be too much of a barrier to heat?

Any insight into this would be appreciated. Thanks.

In-floor radiant is really nice because the heat comes from where you want it, around your feet. It probably won't be much more efficient unless you really have insulation problems around the perimeter of your house that is wasting heat from the back of your baseboards. Of course if you can turn the tstat down because it feels nice and warm everywhere in the room, yes, it will help. One caution, if you mix the baseboard and floor radiant you cannot run the same temp water to both. The floor radiant takes a much lower temperature water supply. It is all done with mixing valves and such, but it adds to the expense of the install.

As to your second floor, yes, all that thickness isn't helping things, but if you put the correct amount of insulation BENEATH the heat tubes, the heat will go where it should, mostly up. The drag is that you will get more heat build up below the floor boards which may exacerbate problems with shrinking and squeaks. You also will get much more temperature lag and overshoot. My brother-in-law put floor radiant under full 1" fir flooring (remilled bleacher seats, it's beautiful) and it works well, but you don't set the thermostat back at night, it takes too long to heat up in the morning. He gets the rooms up to temp and only turns things back when they are gone 2 days or more. If you can get rid of that plywood when you replace the flooring that would help.

Floor heat is a very nice option. However, know that you will have to add a temperring(mixing) valve to the boiler piping for your floor heat. Baseboard is usually run about 180to 190 degrees. Floor heat should not be over 140. I recommend 130. If the pipes under the floor get to hot you will have problems with your flooring materials.