Has anyone used electric heating cables with a thermostat in their concrete kennel floors? If so, does it heat the floor enough to warm the dogs on nights colder than 20 degrees? What happens to the heat if you put a soft dog bed on top of it? Does any heat still get through?
Thanks. Thinking about building it into my new kennel flooring.
Speaking as a heating & Cooling professional; the heat available from any kind of heating system depends upon what is designed & installed. Whoever designs the system for you should know what the space is used for, what the design temperatures are, and how the structure is to be insulated. So, in a word, to answer your question, it depends on how much of the cable heat is installed in the floor. As to the question about the bed, It will absorb the heat transfered from the floor and will transfer it through. However, it will transfer at a slower rate as the bed will act as an insulator.
Thanks, Pete. The salesman said the floor would be able to heat to 85 degrees but I don't know if that's dependent on ambient air temperatures or not. Have you ever seen or had installed this kind of application for the product?
I have not personnally installed this, I have read spec's on it several times. All of the heated floor systems that I have put in have been warm water systems, more expensive to install but much cheaper to operate. I don't know how big your kennels are but, I've heated many garages and work shops with a 30 / 40 gal. water heater. as long as the designer knows the square footage of the area to be heated and the temperature diff. between the outside temp. and the desired inside temp. they can design how much cable is needed. Do keep in mind that the floor temp does not need to be as warm as what you would think needed for air temp. and the dogs don't need the floor as warm as what a person would find comfortable, except in a whelping area. In a whelping area, unless you have a designated area that is only used for such, I would suggest treat it the same as the rest of the kennel and use whatever temporary heat that you would routinely use for a whelping box.
