Yes you can have baseboard radiators and in-floor radiant. "Can they be in the same loop or zone?" That may not be the best way to plumb, as the radiators and in-floor will likely require different water temperatures (supply & return âÂÂT), flow rates and controls. Always use proper design and best practices for assured comfort and reliability, not easiest, quickest, cheapest hookup. Don't forget automatic air elimination and dirt separation. Proper placement of every component is crucial! Plan and document your mechanical room carefully with proper labeling, arrows indicating flow direction, supply & return and a DETAILED schematic that remains on-site and includes every component so that any technician coming on site can understand what they're looking at. HIRE A SERIOUS PROFESSIONAL - you'll be glad you did! IMO SR

I have not used cork, so I can't speak about that. I have used many other underlayments including FloorMuffler. In my personal experience Sound Solutions underlayment is the best for what you are asking about. One person can't hardly lift and carry a 6ft wide roll of this. Three things you need to have to achieve a quiet and fairly solid feeling floating floor. The substrate has to flat,flat,flat. Use a premium underlayment. Pick a quality floor with excellent milling and a stout joinery system, and the thicker it is the better imo. I have installed this way before and it is very solid feeling underfoot. Most folks are surprised when they discover it's a floating floor.

The pricing for the electric radiant heat kind of depends on how many twists and turns you have. The way it works is it comes on a large roll, which gets cut each time a turn is necessary. If you have a lot of turns, you may need more material. Also, you don't have coverage in areas where the cabinets/island are. So I calculate your room as being 238 sq feet, but I have no idea as to how much of the floor space is occupied by cabinets. That needs to be subtracted. I bought ours from warmly*yours.com and they offered a 20% discount for contractors. Figure out from your floor plan how much walking space you have - you can include or exclude the space under the toekick depending on whether your feet ever go there, and enter the area on the estimate tool on the their website. I don't think an estimate of $1000-$1200 would be too far off. Add to that price the cost of the thermostat as well, and the labor for your guy to do the work. It was definitely worth it for us in our bathrooms - one bathroom had two "cold walls" or outside walls, so I wanted maximum warmth.

Since you have chosen warmboard over gypcrete, what was your reasoning behind it besides responsiveness? I am sorry for the confusion. I didn't build a house with Warmboard, I had it in a house where original owner had installed it. It wasn't a house I built. I used it in the sense that I heated the house with it. I looked at the Gypcrete system and somehow feels uneasy about it. Doing a concrete pour over first and second floor does not sound structurally sound to me. Gypcrete has positives and negatives but shouldn't be overlooked because of structurally sound. I think a competent and knowledgeable designer is much more important than which type of system you use. So if you don't have a lot of experienced local people, you have to find experienced people who can help design at a distance. I would start with Radiant Engineering (talk to many companies though). A long somewhat unbiased discussion of radiant: First, it should be noted that radiant heat isn't an efficiency discussion. As people have pointed out many times hydronic radiant systems rarely have a positive payback. They are simply too expensive to install and they never payback if you are installing central air. However, every decision in your house isn't about payback. There are many decisions, such as paint color, cabinet color, cabinet design, many fixtures, etc., that are about your enjoyment of your home. No one has a pool installed because they want it to add value to their house. Radiant fits soundly into that category. Next: A discussion of trade-offs between the different systems. It is important to note that ALL radiant floor systems will provide a comfortable environment to a home that other heating methods struggle to achieve. There are basically five considerations in radiant heat (1) installation costs, (2) operating costs, (3) responsiveness (4) allowable customization and (5) noise (as hot water passes through cold aluminum plates it makes noise). If we look at the different systems we can typically see how they handle each of these things. Warmboard is (1) very expensive to install, (2) it has a low operating cost as it is a warm water system rather than a hot water system, (3) incredibly responsive for radiant heat (able to heat a structure in hours rather than days), (4) low customization and (5) low noise. Underfloor transfer plate systems are (1) moderately expensive to install, (2) low operating costs as they are also warm rather than hot water systems, (3) are somewhat responsive (4) highly customizable and (5) have more expansion noise. Gypcrete overpour is (1) moderately expensive (still cheaper than the two above), (2) have low costs as,they too are warm water systems, (3) not responsive at all, (4) are highly customizable and (5) eliminate almost all noise. Staple up systems are (1) pretty cheap (2) high operating costs as they are a hot water system, (3) not responsive at all, (4) limited customization (they are more limited by physics than design), and (5) are pretty noisy. So looking at Warmboard vs. similar systems - the only real concern from using any aluminum covered plywood system is the noise. Warmboard eliminates expansion noise because of the "special" glue they use to adhere the aluminum to the wood. I can't really tell you how special their glue is, I feel confident they will say super special and their competition will disagree. Warmboard type systems vs. underfloor transfer plate systems - Warmboard is quieter but the loops are not really customizable. Loops are 8" apart with Warmboard, so you can choose not to put warmboard in places but you can't get the loops closer together. With transfer plate systems you can customize the heat of a room by simply moving the loops closer together. This means that you can make the floor right outside the shower warmer than the floor beside the toilet (not many people spend a lot of time standing beside their toilet), but there is more expansion noise. Warmboard is a bit more responsive than transfer plates. Warmboard vs, gypcrete overpour - Gypcrete overpour gives you almost unlimited customization without the noise associated with aluminum transfer plate systems. However, it is not at all responsive. Staple up systems - They are more expensive to operate than any of the above systems but are cheaper to install and easier to maintain. You are not likely to nail through a staple up system with a nice thick transfer plate. Also easier to remodel with staple up systems. TL:DR In the end, if I was ranking a radiant system today - I would probably rank it - underfloor transfer plates > gypcrete > Warmboard. But it is a three way photo finish so it wouldn't take a lot to change the order. Also noisy houses don't bother me at all.