Quote:
Originally Posted by schwalbach
Not hijacking thread as my idea is related and I feel a good place to discuss options.
my idea is to keep the heat in the underbelly, not insulate the floor from the under belly, It would also create a air space of about 1 foot of neutral air space (think double pane windows) which also has insulating value.
Anyone have any pros or cons on this?
|
schwalbach -
If your purpose is to retain heat in the underbelly, then you already know that the only "heat" that ends up there, is supplied by the 2" duct when the furnace is operating. So unless your furnace is running, there will be no heat to retain.
It would be interesting to find out how much warm air actually ends up in the underbelly and how "warm" this air is. Is there a significant temperature difference? I doubt if anyone has measured the "before and after" temperature - with the furnace on and with the furnace off. It would be an interesting experiment for someone to conduct.
You also made mention of comparing it to a thermopane window. Remember that the panes of glass - two or three - are all sealed and there really is a "neutral air space" between each of the panes. I don't think it would be possible to create a similar space in the underbelly since it would be nearly impossible to seal it in such a way as to prevent air leaking out or air coming in.
If one of the purposes is to create a heated environment to protect the holding tanks in cold weather then I think you would be better off looking at tank heaters which are designed for that purpose.
Whatever you end up doing with your project, I'm sure it will result in an improvement over what is there now but unless you are going to add some kind of auxiliary heat in the underbelly that isn't dependent on the furnace, I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make.
I would also recommend that you check out geo, our forum's undisputed "Lord of the Underbelly" and read his 2 part thread on insulating and other explorations of the underbelly. Do a search on "insulation the underbelly"