Is there a Discussion Forum that someone can suggest for more generic house related topics and design, not just specific about garages? I'm looking to pose questions on Radiant heat choices, but not in concrete.

We have radiant hot water heat under the floor but not in concrete. It has metal plated that attach to the bottom of the floor from the basement. There are two sets of plated between each floor choice. Pex plastic tubing then snaps into a slot in the metal plate. Our house is small and well insulated and we heat it with a 40 gal LP hot water heater connect to the tubing. Works great. If this is what you have in mind I can give you more details.

We also have radiant electric that was put in the house when we first built it that mounts high on the wall. They work better than convection electric but they are still electric an more expensive to run than LP. We use them now for zone heating in the bath rooms and in rooms we don't use much.

We also have a wood stove that is radiant, no blower, that will heat the whole house. We heated 100% with wood for over 20 years till I got lazy and had the radiant under floor heat put in. We designed the floor plan of the house for easy heating from the room with the wood stove. We now use the the wood stove for evening fires and cold spells when we want to conserve fuel.

As you can see I'm a believer in radiant heat.

Our home is a combination of in-floor radiant where I have ceramic and linoleum and baseboard radiant heat where there are wood floors. Our baseboard heat looks like 6" tall, 3/4" thick baseboard. It just radiates heat without the help of convection.

We have no carpet over the radiant floors. Made that mistake. Wet Alaskan Malamutes and wool carpet over a heated floor makes for a very smelly experience.

The best thing about radiant heat is the ability to control zones for comfort and energy savings. It makes great heat for a garage floor. A simple system can consist of a water heater, pump, zone valve, thermostat and PEX tubing.

The second best thing is that our boilers produce endless domestic hot water.