Thanx all.
It's actually pretty simple. If you look at the first few pics it shows 5/8" pex piping attached to the styrofoam insulation laid prior to pouring concrete. The styrofoam is optional, just better to retain heat. In one of the pictures you can see the manifold. It has 5 blue valves on top and 5 red valves on the bottom. The piping is laid out in "zones", so I have 5, with the valves controlling the flow of hot water entering each independent zone. Zones typically are not more than 300' per loop. The red valves are in and blue out. I have a boiler that feeds water to the red side of the manifold. Mine is roughly 170 F. It travels through the loop and circles back out of the blue valves into the red again. The boiler will continue to feed into the system until the water circling the loop is maintaining 110 F, outside temperature dependent, the colder outside, the hotter the water. Of course the floor will continue to cool the loop so the boiler will periodically push in more hot. I run my thermostat at 65 F. The shop will cool to that and the system will fire up to warm the floor. Generally it will fall a few more degrees before the radiant heat is fully taking effect, roughly 62 F. Then as the room warms and it reaches 65 F, the system shuts off. Because the floor is still hot the room temperature will continue to rise a few more degrees. It will usually reach about 67 F. So it does vary a little but not to the point that it feels any different either way. With this system each zone is independent so I can adjust certain areas to be warmer or cooler depending on where stuff is. Example, if I only have storage at the far end of the shop I don't need the floor to be super warm so I can pinch off the flow to that zone. Or in front of the overhead door I can run it a little hotter for melting snow off a vehicle that is just pulled in. Blah, blah, blah. Hope that wasn't too long, and maybe it was understandable!!
