Radiant Heat For the Second Floor

Although the scope of this construction project has almost completely focused on the ground floor of my 3 floor Victorian (for budgetary reasons), I used the open framing on the ground floor as an opportunity to run the radiant heat for the second floor of the house. This radiant floor will operate at a lower temperature than the ground floor because it runs under the existing oak strip flooring of the second floor. We plan on installing engineered flooring for the ground floor as I've been told it's more compatible with radiant heat.

Framing

For the last 3 weeks the carpenters have been busy framing out the ground floor of the house. They allowed the concrete slab to set for a week before the work started. What you see in the picture is the lead carpenter finishing the framing of the new bathroom (5 x 8); to the left is the new bedroom closet. Here's an interesting point I was told: arpenters use fresh timber (still damp) for framing because as it dries it shrinks slightly and the nails tighten in place, making the framing stronger. The framing will be finished this week.