In Floor Heat, floor covering

[jjkoolman]

Hey guys,

So I'm in the process of building a new house, and got the ok from the missus, to have a 4-stall garage, with a dedicated stall for a sim. I also have a friend that installs the pex tubing for radiant heat in floor heating systems. My question is, if I have a putting green/subfloor for a hitting area am I cutting out the heat transfer from the floor? Only 1 stall will have some kind of floor covering and the rest of the garage will be uncovered/epoxied concrete. Any thoughts or ideas are greatly appreciated. The floor is already poured and everything is getting insulated and sheetrocked in the next two weeks, so I'm scrambling also to figure out which way I want the hitting area to face (See attached) in order to get all my wires pulled to the right spots. Any opinions welcome on that as well...

[andygg1986]

If you build up a putting green by raising it off the concrete with some 2x4s or something similar you will be cutting down on the radiated heat. The area under it will get hot but turf won’t radiate heat as efficiently as concrete so there will be a buildup of heat under it. You could add some small fans under it to blow the heat out. At the same time, you are going to still have over half the area uncovered so it will probably stay reasonably warm even if it isn’t ideal efficiency.

As far as the direction that you should hit, do you have garage door rails in that bay? If so, make sure they won’t interfere with your swing whatever direction you decide to go with. Also, make sure they don’t cast a shadow from the projector onto the screen.

[jjkoolman]

Thanks Andy, that's what I'm afraid of with a subfloor of 2x4's, but as long as everything stays warm it won't be to bad, or maybe I'll just build up a hitting platform to put my fiberbuilt mat in. I have an electric heater wired in the garage as well for "supplemental" heat to warm it quickly and plan on keeping the radiant heat system running around 40-50 degrees.

There will be rails in that garage bay but I'm planning on a side mount opener and doing a high lift kit on the rails to get them up and out of the way as much as possible. I'm leaning towards the second picture setup, but thought I'd see what the forum thought would be the best setup.

[StanMI]

Depending on what part of the world you live in, if Snow is ever in your area you'll want to make sure you have good drainage inside your garage. If your adding any kind of heat, Snow and ice from under your vehicles will melt and it really makes a mess. If your hitting area is not in a high spot your very nice turf can really suffer. (Yes, I speak from experience...........enter cuss words here!!)

[jjkoolman]

StanMI - thanks for the heads up! I live in SD so snow and ice are definitely a factor. I actually had the builder install floor drains. The stall that will have the sim, the floor is flat and the other 2-stall section everything slopes to the drain. I'm also thinking of purchasing one of these (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OHZ20X4...v_ov_lig_dp_it) to park the car on to keep the runoff contained....

[jwdakota]

Very similar build to mine, jjkoolman. I have pex tubing in my concrete garage floor and I built up a subfloor with 2X4's with a plywood, then rubber mat, and a hitting mat on top of that. I have a 3 stall garage and my simulator takes up the last stall. Actually it takes a stall and a half. (which my wife is not thrilled about. I finished my build November 2017, and here is SD we had a cold start to 2018. I'm sure there is some decrease in heat transference but I did not notice any difference it heating my garage with the simulator. I do not need a secondary form of heat. I checked my utilities bill for the cold months and the increase was minimal. I kept my garage at 60 degrees prior to the simulator, and 68 degrees after the build. My kids sometimes bumped it up to 72. My framed out subfloor is 12 feet wide by 13 feet long. I live in MItchell, SD. If you'd like to message me with your phone number, I would be happy to talk with you. If you are close, you can even come check it out. If you have kids, be prepared for them to take over your simulator as a movie theater. Netfilx definetely runs more than FSX.

[jjkoolman]

jwdakota - Thanks for the insight! I live in Rapid City, so not quite as cold as Mitchell, but yes we had a miserable spring and my current sim I was running a 15Kw electric heater when I wanted to play, hence the radiant heat in the new house. I'm glad to hear your utility bill wasn't outrageous. I was worried that if I kept the floor at 50 degrees it would be quite expensive. Also glad to hear that the subfloor doesn't cut out to much of your heat as I'd like to build a floor so everything is level instead of having a hitting platform on top of turf. I DO have kids and am planning on putting an additional "netflix" theater room of their own in the house so hopefully they don't take over my sim, as they have quite often with my current sim. Again thanks for the help and comments. I will message you soon when I get closer when it's closer to time to setup the sim in the new garage with a couple questions!

[jwdakota]

No problem, Good Luck!!