Anyone tried using electric floor heat in their fish house?

[unclewhoo]

My plan is to build a fish house for next year’s ice fishing season. I’ve thought about putting in electric floor heat. Has anyone tried this?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

[crestliner08]

Better have a big genny!

"There is a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot"

[JJ]

I would think that would be a recipe for ice erosion directly under the house. Might make for a nice square hole in the ice

Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus

[bam_bam]

I haven’t tried it, but am considering doing hot water heat in my next big fish house.

I plan on using small pex pipe (1/2″, 3/8″ if they make it). A small propane water heater (6 gallon) would be the heat source. What I was thinking was building my floor with a layeyer of reflectix insulation covered marine grade plywood on the bottom (using the reflextix as a thermal break for the floor stringers), using 2×4 stringers 16″ on center run the long way- I plan on having a metal sub frame under all of this so flex shouldn’t be an issue, followed by 2″ blue dow high density foam, stapling some Reflectix foil insulation to that, then using pipe staples to staple the pipe runs in the floor, then using 1/2 inch cdx to cover it, and then some outdoor carpeting. This will give you about an inch of airspace above the foil where the radiant pipe sits which would act as insulation too. I was thinking the pipe could be run 2 feet on center.

You should be able to set your water heater pretty low to control the heat, and use a small circulation pump to move the water.
In place of water I was thinking of using RV anti-freeze, so that if there’s a leak it would be a little more enviro friendly.
The only electric part of the whole system would be the circulation pump, which wouldn’t have much of a draw, so a little 1,000 watt genny should be able to run it.
If it seems to struggle you could always add a couple gallon holding tank above the floor to to create a larger thermal bank of hot water.
The reason I was thinking hot water heat was because I’ve also been kicking around the idea of building a mini outdoor wood boiler that I could set outside the fish house…

We're here to tell you about snow blindness in cats. It's affecting more and more cats each year, and it scares the livin' s**t out of us.

[bam_bam]

now that I’ve been thinking about it and re-read my post…I bet you could run the pump off of a small inverter and a marine battery for quite a while- those little pumps barely pull any juice, so you could feasably have your fish house warm while transporting it…especially if you have a dual-source rv hot water heater that runs off 12 volt and propane…

We're here to tell you about snow blindness in cats. It's affecting more and more cats each year, and it scares the livin' s**t out of us.

[unclewhoo]

Bam_Bam,

I will throw out a few questions….I’m not trying to be negative.

I don’t know a whole lot about water heaters….will the RV anti freeze work OK with the water heater? Will the antifreeze damage the water heater?

How well do you think control of the heat will be by turning the water heater up and down? I guess other fish houses have a problem of being to warm so people just crack the window or door.

[bam_bam]

I wouldn’t think it’d damaged the water heater at all, and in fact I’m going to run a corrosion inhibitor in it too to keep the pump up. Te glycol is more ‘slippery’ than regular water, and a corrosion inhibitor would help with any fitting and internal pump parts. A water heater and a boiler are about the same animal, only difference is that the boilers apply larger amounts of heat to a smalller tank. Most boilers installations I’ve came across have anti-freeze in them.

I think that I’d be able to control the heat fairly well…I was considering getting a thermostat to run the pump off of.

They make those thermostats that are basically temperature switches- you set the desired temperature and when it’s below that it’ll switch on whatever you have plugged in it until the desired temperature is reached- with a +/- 6 degree swing(say it’s set at 70 it’ll kick on at 67 and off at 73) You can get them at farm supply stores (like fleet). They’re a cord with a plug in that has a thru-plug(you plug the thermostat into an outlet, and on the backside of the outlet you plug the appliance you want controlled. The cord runs to the thermostat itself, which you hang on the wall. I think they run around $50

I have 2 in my garage that I use to run a homemade underfloor hot water set up as well as a home-built forced air hot water heat exchanger that’s just a truck radiator with a furnace blower behind it- the thermostat runs the blower on the forced air, and it runs the pump on the floor heat. The pump in that set up is a small 007 Taco pump, and it’s plumbed in on a ‘T’ on a return line to my outdoor boiler. I run the supply line directly to my forced air set up (so that way it gets the warmest water) then the return heads over to where my underfloor runs come out of the concrete where the ‘T’s’ and pump are, then returns back from there. On the return end of my underfloor heat I put another ‘T’ with a check-valve, so that way if the underfloor isn’t drawing any water the check valve stays closed and all the water from the forced air goes straight back to the boiler without trying to backfeed. My 30x50x12′ high garage stays 50 degrees all winter long with that set up, and with the forced air it doesn’t take long to kick it up to 60 degrees if I want to work in my T-shirt. Hopefully I didn’t just confuse you with all that.

What it all boils down to is if you did it that way, your pump wouldn’t run continuously either, saving battery. And when the pump shuts off the water heater’s internal aquastat would simply turn the heater off when the liquid inside of the tank reached the set temperature. If you wanted to, you could find an old heater from a school bus, or buy an ‘add on’ heater for farm equipment and have a 12-volt forced air set-up as well as the floor heat.

We're here to tell you about snow blindness in cats. It's affecting more and more cats each year, and it scares the livin' s**t out of us.

[fsnrod]

Your still going to need a fan system .

[bam_bam]

you might need a fan…but rather than those cheaper 12 volt cirlulation fans I’d go with a 12 volt hugger style ceiling fan..I have one in my largest permanent and that thing is worth it’s weight in gold. It’s quiet and moves the air nicely. You can get one from most RV supply stores or I do believe I’ve seen them listed in Fish house Supply. If you’re building a new house from scratch and plan on using one make sure to give yourself plenty of headroom!

We're here to tell you about snow blindness in cats. It's affecting more and more cats each year, and it scares the livin' s**t out of us.

[unclewhoo]

I don’t know a whole lot about electricity…however, I know enough to get me into trouble!

This is a link to an electric floor mat. http://www.thermosoft.com/radiant-floor-heating/TT10-120?gclid=CKq_1fLO3K8CFbMEQAodvTQxAA

These are the specifications for the electric floor mat:
Specifications
Application: Indoor, Residential
Coverage: 15.0 ft.²
Voltage: 120V
Amperage: 1.50A
Peak Power: 180W
Power Density: 12 W/ft.²
Dimensions: 10 ft. x 1.5 ft. (1/8″ thick)

I would need about 6 mats to cover most of my fish house floor. According to the specifications peak power for one floor mat is 180W. So if I were to connect 6 floor mats together….would the peak power needed be 1,080 watts? Would a 2000 watt generator handle this?

[unclewhoo]

I’ve talked with a certified technician about electric floor heat. He said that a 2000 watt generator would handle the wattage needed for electric floor heat.

I plan to use reflective insulation under the electric floor heat so the heat won’t escape the bottom of the fish house.

[MingLee]

What are you using for a floor covering?

I have an area in my basement that is abour 230 square feet. It does take a while to heat up. In floor heat would not be the most efficeint to heat a fish house.

If you are going to use it why not check out the wire instead of the mats? Also make sure that it is approved for wet locations.

[unclewhoo]

I plan to check with the electrician and ask what type of floor covering to use. I’m not sure what the best floor covering would be. Maybe plywood.

You are correct about wetness. I believe there is a material that you can put down like a rubber plaster which in-cases the wire and keeps it from getting wet. Normally this is used in bathroom settings.

I would also agree with you that it would take a while to heat the fish house up. My plan is to use the fish house for weekends, which means I would sleep in it. So once it’s heated I hope there is enough heat where I wouldn’t need another heat source. The other part of my plan is not to use 12volt in the fish house and stick with 110. Therefore my generator will be running anyways, so why not use the electricity it’s producing. I might have to bring along a Mr. Heater in order to warm things up quickly. However, I could also run the generator in the back of the truck before getting to the lake. There is a chance that propane tanks would not be a part of this fish house either. No 12 volt batteries and no propane….I would be happy with that!

I agree with you again….wire not the mats. The electrician said it would be more cost effective to run cable since there will be stuff to go around like the fish holes and other things.

MingLee….thank you for your constructive comments.

[unclewhoo]

Sure would be nice to get a few more comments on this. Anyone?

[highsparks]

Is your 2000 watt generator rated that at 120 volt or 240 volt ? Most common generator ratings are at 240 volt , meaning you only have 1000 wats to use per 120 volt circuit .

If we assume its rated 2000 watts at 240 volts , you have 1000 watts to use for a 120 volt circuit . If you load your generator to 50% load you will have about 500 watts of power .

According to honda a 2000 watt generator will burn .20 gallon of fuel per hour at a 500 watt load . 500 watts is about 4 amps of power . This equals about $.70 worth of gas per hour or $16.80 per day . Thats about what one 20# propane tank fill would cost .

I would guess its gonna be three to four times more expensive to use electric in floor heat than it would be to use propane , either just radiant or forced air .

My biggest concern is ground fault protection . A short circuit from a damaged cable could cause electrocution . Be sure to use a quality ground fault outlet to supply the heating cable to prevent this…..

[Author]

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