In 2004, Jen and I had a choice to make. We were planning out our new kitchen, and we had to make the most of the space we had, as well as our money. I’d taken out a home equity loan to front the cash, so we were on a fixed budget, and that prevented us from doing the obvious thing, which was to blow out the wall between our dining room and the kitchen to open the space up. We worked with a kitchen planner and they helped us fit a set of cabinets into the space we’d inherited, but the critical choice we had to make was this: whether or not to sacrifice a cabinet for the radiator that was shoehorned under the existing rental-grade countertop. We decided, correctly, that storage was more important, and removed the radiator. But we’ve been living with the fallout of that decision ever since, and it’s never been more apparent than this past week of single-digit temperatures.

It sucks to be out there when it’s cold outside. To the point where Jen has turned the oven on just to stay warm while making food. Even when the radiator was there, it was never any great shakes; the kitchen is at the very end of the closed-circuit loop in our steam heating system, which means that it and the bedroom above get the least amount of heat last. But walking in there after just having gotten out of bed to get some coffee started is like walking through a snowbank; it sucks.

Contrast that with the Schluter radiant floor heat system we put in the master bath, which is like walking on a warm hug. In the morning, when the cats are freed from their prison (they sleep in the basement, otherwise they rattle the bedroom door and keep Jen up all night) they make a beeline for the bathroom and lay around up there all day. I can’t say I blame them; there have been days when I’ve wanted to shove them aside to take a nap.

Looking around the interwebs, I found a radiant floor retrofit kit for houses like ours, where the entire thing is essentially a roll-out mat sold in various lengths that are attached to a central 120V controller. You staple them to the joists under the floor with about 2″ of void space, and then tuck insulation up underneath. Something like this would go a long way to making things more livable out there, and we could move the big, bulky Edenpure heater my Mom gave us out of there for good.

Given that interest rates aren’t going down anytime again in my lifetime, and we’re going to need to make this dump more livable for the future, $2K in materials + electrician visit to hook it up wouldn’t be disagreeable.

Date posted: January 24, 2025 | Filed under house | 1 Comment »

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