Hydronic heating in gym - thoughts?

Any gyms out there have it? Reviews?

Thoughts in general?

Seems like it creates a desirable temperature gradient (warm near the ground and cooler up high), but since you’ll likely have forced air to help with chalk dust mitigation, you’d have two systems in place. 

Look at the install price of in floor heat and you will know why gyms dont have it.

why would you want the floor to be warm?

wouldn't that make trying to rest, really annoying? wouldn't that make peoples shoes go floppy much faster due to the heat?

I would imagine that any gym owner looking at this list of considerations would decide it's far too complicated to be worth it?

encountering your first burst pipe might be a dealbreaker?

I actually have radiant heating in my home.
this is what my basement looks like

https://imgur.com/a/E5Lqd8n

that's only for a few thousand square feet.  so, imagine maintaining at least twice as many pipes.

Cooling is your problem in a gym, not heating.  Gyms are rarely too cold, and usually too hot 6 months of the year.   Forced air heat + air pears ( airiusfans.com/air-pear/) to mix the air is all you need for heat.

A busy gym has 100+ humans heating it up everynight, and the walls/floor absorb that heat and tend to keep the facility warm overnight.  That doesn't mean you won't need heat, but you'll be surprised how little heat is required relative to similar sized facilities without the human heaters in your climate zone.

Plus, having in floor heating and then just covering it up with thick pads kind of defeats the purpose no? Agree, I’m sweaty when I’m at the gym, so don’t need the heat to be any more “efficient”.

As a Plumbing and Mechanical contractor, I wouldn't advise radiant for a gym at all. Baseboard heat may be a good idea in that it heats the perimeter mostly to mitigate cold air intrusion without stirring the air the way a rooftop or furnace unit would. Hydronic heat tends to saturate the materials inside a space with heat as opposed to forced air which just circulates the heated air around with each call for heat from the thermostats. If you set temp at 70°, it will just feel like 70° all the time as opposed to the jumping around from chilly to warm.
Also won't have the chalked up filters to deal with messing with your equipment.

If you are in Alaska it could work.
Still going to have to move air so it does add cost. 

Kev V wrote: 
Thoughts in general?

Climbers, in general, do not complain about gyms being too cold  - except old gyms with broken down heaters, no insulation. But, I've been to quite a few gyms were staff members, especially counter, are freezing while the temperatures inside the gym are getting uncomfortably warm for moderate climbing. Perhaps supplemental heating system for counter might be worth consideration - either heated flooring, or IR panels. 

DayMartin wrote: Plus, having in floor heating and then just covering it up with thick pads kind of defeats the purpose no? 

This ^. End of discussion.

DayMartin wrote: Plus, having in floor heating and then just covering it up with thick pads kind of defeats the purpose no? Agree, I’m sweaty when I’m at the gym, so don’t need the heat to be any more “efficient”.

Yep, this.

All of this ^^^ ^^  is just the feedback I needed! Best to keep it simple

What ???

amarius wrote:

Climbers, in general, do not complain about gyms being too cold 

You obviously don’t live in Canada! I’ve had to wear a sweatshirt and toque (hat, if you don’t speak Canadian) in the gym. But hydronic wouldn’t be a good choice, for the reasons others have pointed out. Works great in my house though.

Lee Green wrote:

You obviously don’t live in Canada! I’ve had to wear a sweatshirt and toque (hat, if you don’t speak Canadian) in the gym. But hydronic wouldn’t be a good choice, for the reasons others have pointed out. Works great in my house though.

Sending temps brohamski

You can use hydronic heat that is not in the floor...either baseboard type or radiator type. If you're going to heat no matter, it's an efficient method.

B W wrote: You can use hydronic heat that is not in the floor...either baseboard type or radiator type. If you're going to heat no matter, it's an efficient method.

People still love gas guzzling, it's a traditional thing I think?

Hydronic heat in floors bumps up the radiant heat exchange between your body and the thermal mass of the floor. The architecture firm I work for uses it, whenever the budget allows, for vehicle maintenance buildings. Mechanics stay comfortable even when the air is below typical comfort ranges. We also use hydronic for cooling, for the same reason. If you could figure out how to get thermal mass at the floor, and still maintain padding, you could get precisely what you're looking for: warm temps at the floor and cool temps up high.
Movement Gym in Denver is consistently uncomfortable. It's too cold or too hot at the floor, and usually too hot at the upper part of the climbs. If you want the gym to be comfortable, you need innovation on the part of the mechanical engineer and the architect. And you need a bigger budget than a typical gym. BTW, forced air systems don't account for radiant and conductive heat exchange, so you can find yourself to be uncomfortable even when the air temp is right where you want it.

Victor K wrote: We also use hydronic for cooling, for the same reason.

Cooling with hydronic is really tricky - if cooling liquid temperature drops below dew point of air bad things happen - condensation and associated problems.
But, climbing gym operators are finally waking up to the fact that big ceiling fans are a must to equalize temperatures. It is almost unbelievable what a difference the fans make - one of the local gyms has two fans, forgot to turn one of them on, and it was considerably worse on that side of the gym.

I retrofitted my house with radiant hydronic floors throughout. Took me a couple winters worth of renovating while I was doing other things, but it's AWESOME. But for a gym, probably not. Like others have said, the mats on the floors will make it impractical.
It also makes you really warm. Like it's fine if you're just walking around, but if I'm doing a project where I'm being even semi active on the floor I get really agitated because I'm so hot. Like painting baseboard trim or whatever... you get hot FAST if you're sitting on the floor.
For a home it's the absolute best. It's almost entirely silent, no radiators or baseboards to occupy wall space. And it's great efficient heat. I lived in a house with forced hot air for a few years and never ever again. It's like the heat in your car, too hot, too cold, allergies, noise, garbage. 

Climb Iowa in Des Moines is a LEED certified climbing gym with geothermal radiant floor heating. It’s great. I don’t know if the piping extends under the pads (the ground floor is probably <40% padded—the bouldering is mostly on a mezzanine), but having a toasty floor feels amazing when it’s -10° outside.

Cost would be the primary concern, but could easily be offset by tax credits. I’d say for a gym in a colder climate, it’s likely the ideal heating system. I go to Climb Iowa every Christmas when I visit my folks, and would say it’s the best “feeling” cold-weather gym I’ve been to, and I’ve been to probably 50+ gyms all over the country.

Hydronic heating is extremely comfortable and efficient when done properly.  There is no problem controlling the temperature for any application.  It is simply a matter of flow rate, water temperature, and type of emitter.  These inputs can easily be varied to match the load according to demand and varied based on the outdoor temperature for maximum comfort and efficiency.  Zoning is quite easy since radiant heat doesn't "rise" or move from one area to another easily.  Every room or zone can be controlled individually.  You could have a hot yoga room, mild weight room and cool climbing area, for example. This same system could also be used to heat pools, spas, and snow melt.  And since most new gyms have a tremendous amount of concrete already in the design, the hyrdonic distribution system is fairly inexpensive, takes up no space and is silent and invisible.  

With hydronics, the energy source is quite flexible.  One could use geothermal, solar thermal, high efficiency boilers, bio mass, etc. The energy required to distribute the heat is a fraction of what it takes with forced air.  A forced air system that would require a 3000 watt blower would only need one circulating pump that requires 50 watts, for example.  The same system could also be used for radiant cooling.  

If you look around gyms like ET Golden or Movement Denver, you will see a tremendous amount exposed concrete despite the padding.  

Hydronic system tend to have a slightly higher up front cost, but provide a tremendous amount of energy saving and reduced emissions in the long run.

This award winning house has 24 foot ceilings, is very comfortable at the floor and consumes only 75 watts to circulate the heat.  The engineers insisted on supplemental forced air.  They never use it:

https://www.caandesign.com/the-chv-house-in-cherry-hills-village-by-entasis-group/

Here is a great example of radiant cooling:

https://www.viega.us/en/company/references/ARTIC.html

Feel free to PM me if you have more questions.