Garage Build Thread

[sennister]

I thought I would start a thread on a garage build we are starting. It is somewhat related. Stall #3 will be where the bikes will live. It will be mainly for parking our daily drivers but have room to make it a little bit of a shop. Before the make it bigger comments start. We already have a 1500 sqft pole barn which is my shop and will likely remain so. Also another 1000sqft in cold (uninsulated and not heated) storage buildings plus a tuck under garage which will go away at some point. I can see some lighter work like wrenching on a bike in the winter work being done out here but it will shift to tractor parking in the winter for that 3rd stall and most of the bikes will go back to the pole barn for winter storage.

Because of existing windows on the house the porch will expand from 12x20 to 12x29. This will mean the west wall will come off, the roof and rafters will come off and the wall will shift over 9 ft to match the back wall on the garage. The garage will be 29x40 and will have a poured patio behind it to make up for the deck that we ripped off last fall. Ceiling will be at least 10' but it will depend as we are going to have two priorities. First match the roof line. Second, we can dig down to get more ceiling height but I don't want the apron sloped toward the garage. We are going with 3 single garage doors and there will be 2 access doors. The porch will eventually be converted to a laundry room and mud room making it so all "living" can take place on the main floor of the house. We are doing in floor heat for the garage with as separate zone to heat what will be the laundry/mud room. I am considering adding one of those Mitsubishi Heat Pumps to possibly do on demand heat and AC in the garage. We are also adding a small utility room in the garage. Power for the house is getting upgraded to 400A Service which is up from 150A. 150A will still go to the house and then 200A to the new garage. I expect to cut the power lines (don't know where they are for sure) to the pole barn and other buildings. So they will all get fed from the new garage. That will also allow me to use more power in the pole barn for welding and such. I only have 60A out there now.

Last fall I bought a Stihl MS 362 R C-M chain saw. I knew I had several trees that needed to come down on the property including 4 on the build site. My small 16" Homelite saw is getting well too old and this was going to be a big project so I went with a Pro saw. The R in the model number means it has a wrap handle. I guess it is a regional thing and isn't available everywhere. By stepping up to the pro line of Stihl got me a few extra features and didn't add a lot more cost over the Farm Boss that I was looking at originally. The one thing I am unsure about is the computer control. But from what I have run through it so far it runs like a champ. 3 pulls every and it fires everytime. I have taken down 7 trees this fall/winter and have another 16 Ash trees which will be deal from the Emerald Ash Borer probably in the next 5 years. I could treat them but it is too expensive because of their size. I would rather spend the thousands of dollars we would spend in treating them on new trees when they die in a few years.

Here is a shot after the three ash trees were taken down. I was cutting up the last one.

 

[sennister]

As winter was passing and days were getting warmer, we stated getting to a point where we had days above freezing and the snow was melting off exposed ground pretty quick. There was a forecast for 6-10" of snow coming but I decided to remove the snow we had in place (about 2') to clear the build site. Even though more snow was coming, moving 2' would be easier than 2.5-3'. I enabled the GPS on my watch and racked up 8.11 miles going back and forth moving snow with the front end loader on my John Deere.

It ended up being about 6" of additional snow which was quick to clean up.

After a couple weeks it looked like this. Let the thaw begin. The frost is down a couple feet at this point.

 

[sennister]

Last Friday they were out to remove the siding from the back of the house. The windows with wood trim were all ones replaced by Renewal by Andersen last Oct. We just had them seal up all the windows with cedar for now to keep things waterproof. Once the garage build is done, we are residing the entire house with LP Smartside and a new roof on the entire house as well as new gutters. The one window that wasn't replaced and all the windows in what is now the porch are either going away or are being replaced as part of the garage build.

On Saturday the excavator showed up.

The plan was to start digging the footings on Tuesday. We will see what happens with that. The forecast is calling for 6-10" of snow on Thursday. Granted the ground won't freeze up that quick but if there are no footings I can clear the snow pretty quick with the tractor. If they are dug that is fine we might be waiting longer for the snow to melt to pour the footings. I am waiting to hear from the contractor as to what the plan is.

 

[ReSTored]

Sounds like a great project. I'll be following this.

In your shop bay you might consider adding a recess in your floor slab to enable your bike lift to sit level with the floor. This eliminates any work around like boxes on the side of the lift to stabilize you when getting the bike on and off the lift. There are lot's of YT videos out there showing how this works.

 

[sennister]

Sounds like a great project. I'll be following this.

In your shop bay you might consider adding a recess in your floor slab to enable your bike lift to sit level with the floor. This eliminates any work around like boxes on the side of the lift to stabilize you when getting the bike on and off the lift. There are lot's of YT videos out there showing how this works.

I have thought about that. My biggest concern is that this 3rd bay isn't 100% dedicated to motorcycle work. As I mentioned in one of the posts that it is motorcycle parking in the summer for sure. However the tractor will be out there in the winter months which is used for plowing or blowing snow. While the current tractor isn't that big and it could co-exist pretty well just setting the lift further back in the shop, my concern is I will be replacing the tractor in the next year or two I suspect. I currently have a John Deere X585 which is a garden series tractor. However, a couple years ago I retired it from mowing duties and bought a John Deere Z950R zero turn and once that is paid off I plan on getting either a 2025R or 3025E. Most likely the 3025E as I don't need the midmount mower. Why this matters is I will have a much larger tractor to store in this space and a lot of snow melt. I currently have one of the HF MC lifts and that does what I need. I am having them pour footings in the middle bay of the new garage to add a 2 post but if I only have 10' ceilings (undetermined yet but that is the min) I might not ever put one in. I am mainly doing it because I can't cut the cement later and add footings, that and it adds about $20 to the garage build cost to do it now. I have 12' ceilings in the pole barn and that is where my MC tire changer is, the big air compressor and such. Based on all of this and that space is really my shop, I think the direction I will go is not pour in the recess in the new garage but consider cutting the cement in the pole barn to put one there and add footings for a 2 post there. It is still insulated and heated for winter work. Then I have my HF for a portable solution to move it to the new garage for a winter project and not have to deal with flooding the flush mout lift with water and can tinker on stuff in the winter. I am adding floor drains in the new garage. There will be a trench drain just on the inside of each garage door with the slab sloped toward the doors.

I guess another reason besides just the mess, I don't plan on making this primary shop space because I will have the floor epoxied and I don't want to mess with drop cloths to protect the floor finish from welding and other stuff. For sure all wood working, metal working and other messy stuff will remain in the shop. Oil changes and other basic things are fine in the new garage space.

 

[sennister]

Here is a Sketchup of the garage and mudroom.

 

[SupraSabre]

Looking good!

Good luck with the project!

P.S. I'd still make it bigger!

 

[sennister]

Looking good!

Good luck with the project!

P.S. I'd still make it bigger!

I really can't go any bigger I have to maintain separation between the new building and the pole barn. We need to be able to get a well truck through that opening for the next time the well dies. Also there was the fight with the city. Ordinance states that for a lot our size we can have 2 accessory buildings with a combined 1500sqft of coverage. The pole barn alone is probably a touch over that. Then there is the fact that we have three accessory buildings with a combined space of about 2500sqft Now we are adding another 1160. So we are way over. However all those buildings predate the current 1982 ordinance for the city. I just wasn't sure if they would make me go back and comply with this new garage build. Last June I spoke with the city and they said as long as it was attached to the house with full footings I am fine. In October when they were out to close out the building permit for the new windows we walked the ground and went over the plans with the building inspector. We were good. This spring we pulled the permit and were denied because of a new interpretation of the definition of an "Accessory Building". They said now any garage even if attached counts against accessory building space even if it has full footings if it is over 75sqft. I raised hell asking where that is coming from and he cited something from 2015. I asked why it wasn't an issue last June or Oct and said this was BS. Eventually he went back to the city officials and got clarification, called me back saying it was approved.

We did look into adding a bonus room above the garage. Maybe a Man Cave (or would it be a Man Attic). Just the trusses, and stairs to get up there was a little over $20K more to the build cost. I wasn't really happy about 29' depth. It would have been a standard truss if they were 30 but we get into a window at that point. It was going to be 26' deep but when we ripped off the deck we discovered the exact placement of the basement window and that would put the wall right in the middle of it. Got my wife to agree to bump it to 29'. So in a way we did make it bigger. We are already over budget by quite a bit and haven't even broken ground....


Just got a text from the contractor. With the forecast of snow we are pushing the excavation to next week. He said it will be a muddy mess if we try and do it before it snows. I agreed and said once the snow stops falling, I will be out there with the front end loader on the tractor and will move it all off the build site to keep it as dry as possible. I guess that is better than rain that I can't do anything about. Oh well. We knew we would be fighting April showers. Wasn't really expecting April snow showers though. However we got a 1' of snow last year about this time.

 

[SupraSabre]

Yeah, Cities have a way to get in the way with doing anything good with your property! I feel like most of them in City Hall love the POWER!

Good luck on it all the same!

 

[sennister]

Yeah, Cities have a way to get in the way with doing anything good with your property! I feel like most of them in City Hall love the POWER!

Good luck on it all the same!

Yeah I was trying very hard to not be angry and yell at the building inspector. We live in a very small mainly rural community. There is one building inspector for our town and I think he covers a couple of the other townships around us. We only became a "city" because the closest city started annexing the other surrounding townships. It would be way worse if that happened. Heck our city is so small the city office is in the next city over because we don't have a traditional city format. Just clusters of homes scattered around mainly AG land. I just lay low and try not to rock the boat. There are people that have gotten into arguments with city hall and they make your life hell. Too much good old boy stuff. Kind of like this deal, they all of a sudden try and force some unpublished ordinance from several years ago to stop me and what I found out were 6 separate garage projects. My guess is one of them was on a list and they come up with this "interpretation". On the website they have an ordinance published from 1982 which clearly defines what an Accessory Building is. It covers a detached residential garage along with several other building types but nothing about attached over 750sqft. That was the point I pushed. That and the fact that he had verbally approved the work from a discussion on the phone as well as his approval of the plans when he was onsite closing out another permit all of which he acknowledged remembering the conversations. That this sounds like an undocumented ordinance that they pull out on people they don't get along with. I get that the intent is they are trying to prevent someone from building a 10,000 sqft pole barn with a breezeway to "attach" it to the house and call it an "attached garage". However it was really fishy. We are doing full footings as if it was an addition to the house. I even was about to start down the path of, ok I am building a "family room" with those really big doors that open up to the outside. It isn't a garage. I just consider my motorcycles part of the family. The way we are building this just about doubled the cost of construction but it follows the letter of what they told us last year. Anyhow, we have the approved building permit in hand and are moving forward. Now if the weather would cooperate.

 

[sennister]

I got home yesterday to find that they dropped off more supplies and equipment.

Looks like about 6.5 pallets of block.

Another toy.

The forecast is calling for up to a foot of snow through Friday. Too bad they didn't leave me the code to run the Bobcat. It would have move the snow quicker than I can with my Deere but that is fine.

 

[Andrew Shadow]

Stupid but sadly true story about city inspectors, bureaucracy and red tape.

My neighbour wanted to add a slab on grade workshop attached to the side of his house opposite of where the driveway is. It would only be used as a workshop so full footings below the frost line are not required. It would be attached due to space constraints but no interior entrance to the house. He wanted a garage door in the front of it for ease of access with large items he will be working on. The city wouldn't approve his plans because they showed it as having a garage door.
The following played out over several months of frustrating meetings with the city inspector and the permit department.

City- A garage has to be where the drive way is.
Neighbour- It won't be a garage. It isn't for cars, it will be a workshop.
City- If it has a garage door it is a garage as far as the bylaws are concerned.
Neighbour- OK, I'll put a driveway in front of it then.
City- You can't, you are only allowed one driveway per lot and you already have a driveway on the other side of the house.
Neihbour- So you are telling me that I can't put up a workshop with a garage door in it because it doesn't have a driveway leading to it. This is even though I don't want a driveway there because it isn't going to be used as a garage?
City- Correct.
Neighbour- You are also telling me that I can't put in a driveway to make it a garage so I can have a garage door?
City- Correct.
Neighbour- So tell what I have to do to be able to put up a workshop beside my house.
City- Don't put in a garage door.
Neighbour-That's it. Its that simple?
City- Yes.

Neighbour redoes the plans. All he does is replace the garage door with two large french doors with the same size opening and resubmitts his plans. The plans get rejected again and he sets off for more meetings with them.

Neighbour- The garage door has been removed. Why were my plans rejected?
City- Because this structure will be attached to the house but it is not a garage. Therefore it is classified as an addition to the house.
Neighbour- OK. What does that mean?
City- Because it is an addition to the house it must have full concrete footings below the frost line with a full french drain system.
Neighbour- You won't let me put up a shop because with a garage door in it you said it is a garage. Now you won't let me put up a shop and the reason is because it isn't a garage.
City- Correct.

This area is all solid rock. In the end the only solution he could come up with was that he had to pay the contractor an additional $20,000.00 to hire an excavation company to dig through the rock so that they could poor full concrete footings and put in a drainage system for a workshop that will not have a garage door or a driveway leading to it.

You have to love red tape.

 

[sennister]

Yeah they can get stupid with the details. I had to do full footings to call it an attached garage. That is fine. I will be able to better insulate the ground under the slab since I am doing in-floor heat. They can run the insulation 4' down on the inside of the footings and keep the cold from working under the slab from the sides. It just adds quite a bit to the cost. We haven't discussed itemized bill yet for the project but the contractor mentioned I am looking at $25K in cement work alone. However between the garage floor, apron/driveway and patio out back we are looking at a little over 3000sqft of surface so I guess that is expected. Not sure if I mentioned it earlier but we have a blacktop driveway so part of the project will be to cut the blacktop driveway so that the apron will extend out across the where the existing blacktop is today. The concern is we will be coming down the driveway and making a sharp 90 deg turn into the garage either pulling in straight or backing in. Sharp turns like that would be hard on blacktop.

Not much new yesterday and for the next couple days things will slow to a halt. The rain will start today and change over to snow later tonight. The only new "toy" was I ordered a Reolink RLC-410-5MP POE camera. Ultimately my plan is to set up a server running Blue Iris and set up several cameras around the property but for now I just configured it to use my Synology Diskstation. That comes with a license to run two cameras off their Synology Surveillance Station. the camera is mounted to the corner of the house looking at the build site. It has been configured to record a time lapse of the build.

 

[jfheilman]

I built a "workshop" last year. It had been planned for a long long time but I did not have the time to make it work. It uses something called socket systems which is no longer in business. The size is 45' x 24'. What I like about it most is the interior height is about 14' which means I can lift a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood or whatever and not worry about hitting the ceiling. The support members (6x6 posts) are assembled on the ground and then lifted in place in a "socket"

I have a "garage" the same size up near the house. This building is located about 100 yards from the house and house my MF 1250 tractor and various woodworking and welding equipment and some lumber storage to allow treated wood to dry out before use.

 

[sennister]

That is an interesting truss design.

 

[Andrew Shadow]

Dave:

I would like to ask you about your in-floor heat.
Will it be hot water or electric heating cables?

At some point I need to re-do the concrete floor in my garage and was wondering about in-floor heat since it is a small garage- only about 12' X 21'. I don't have hot water heating in the house so it would have to be electric heating cables. I did very little preliminary research so far. From what I understand the hot water in-floor heat works great because the heat is always there and always available- especially if it runs off of the same system that is already running to heat the house. I read several places that the electric is not so great for a concrete garage floor. I read that it takes to long to heat up, the recovery time is long if the garage door is opened and the garage is cooled off and it consumes a lot more power ($$) to do the job relative to hot water. Many places I looked at didn't even recommend it for a concrete garage floor.

Since your construction decisions have been made and you have decided in-floor heat is a good idea I would appreciate your thoughts about it- especially if it will be electric heating cables.

 

[sennister]

As far as our system and what we have in the house.

House: Natural Gas fired Forced Air Furnace with AC
Natural Gas fired Tankless Water Heater. The unit we have can be used in water heater mode or boiler mode (more on this later)
Main bathroom has electric in floor heat under ceramic tile. This doesn't mean anything really for the garage build but mentioned because I do have experience with it. I did the install of it and the ceramic floor.

Pole Barn: Natural Gas fired Forced Air Heat
Wood burning stove
Window unit AC

New Garage: Natural Gas fired boiler which will feed two zones. One zone will be the garage floor, the other the mudroom/laundry.

Options for the new garage: Mitsubishi (or similar) Heat Pump or maybe the wall mount version. Don't know if I will even do this.

I would start by better defining what you mean by redoing the slab in the garage and to what extent you are looking into doing. Just busting it up and re-pour or more than that. With any heated floor option, or any heat option period there are pros and cons. I don't have all the answers, I looked at what I want to do with the space and picked what I think is the best option and left the door open for a second option (heat pump).

In general in-floor heat is ideal for a space where you want to keep it a constant temp. No matter if you are using electric or liquid based slab heat, it takes a long time to raise the temp. There are a lot of factors such as temp, heat source, slab thickness, spacing of loops and such but in general it will take several hours if not several days to heat up the space depending on how much of a change you want. If you want to keep the garage at 40F all week but 60F on the weekend because you are working on something for a couple hours, you are better off putting on a jacket. The reason is a slab has a lot of thermal mass. It takes a lot of time and energy to change the temp. However no matter if you use electric or gas if you are heating the slab, open the garage door to pull in/out you have heated that slab not the air like a forced air system. So you really don't lose the heat. Just like it too a lot to heat it, it takes a lot to cool it back down. So, as soon as the door closes, you will find that the room will quickly return to the temp it was before the door was opened. That is what is nice about in-floor heat. Also if you are on the ground working on something you don't have that cold slab sucking the heat out of your body.

I have forced air and wood burning stove in the pole barn. The forced air is nice to just leave the temp at about 36F all winter. If I go out there to work, I can bump up the thermostat to 60F and fire up the wood stove to help with maintaining that heat. This is a cost effective way to maintain above freezing temps and bump the heat when you are actually out there because you are only heating the air, it will warm the space pretty quick. The biggest problem with it is my slab gets really cold. Getting back to that thermal mass of the slab I spoke of earlier, it takes a long time to warm it up. Well into the summer that slab is really cold and on a humid day completely wet. Also everything in there stays cold. This moisture battle means I fight rusting tools all the time. I am considering walling off part of the pole barn to better insulate and heat (another heat pump?) that tool space to help combat rusty tools. Or they will be stored in the new garage. I don't really want to have to go back and forth though to get tools. So that is one of my unknowns at this time.

The one option that I don't have but have some experience with it is Infrared Heat Tubes. I first experienced them in the Army when I was in Aviation. We heated the hangers with them and it was pretty cool how we could open basically the entire wall of a building to wheel out the Hueys, Blackhawks and other helicopters, then within minutes of closing the doors the room was back at comfortable temps. This is because like with in-floor heat the IR heat will heat the objects in the room not the air. So as soon as the doors close, the objects heat the air back up. Again like in-floor it isn't good to constantly change the temp. if you want it always 60F or 50F it works. If you only use the space occasionally you may be better off with forced air.

Heat pump option is kind of cool which is why I am keeping it as an option. If you are tied to electric only, I would look into it. It is pretty efficient, you are heating the air which sucks but it is like a forced air system in a way. The other really cool thing is that you can not only heat the space, but it is also an AC unit. So you have cooling and dehumidifying in the summer. I am keeping the door open for this by having plenty of power and plans for running the system so it can be added should we decide we only want to keep the new garage at 45f or so and I want temp heat to work on some random project. I can then used the forced air for temp heat. I may find that the payoff point doesn't make sense and I am better leaving the floor to heat the space to 55-60f all winter. I don't know yet. However AC out there would be nice on a hot summer day.

 

[sennister]

My system for the new garage is a boiler which is basically a tankless water heater on steroids in that it can reach higher temps. You can do an electric boiler as well but I hear they are expensive to run. I didn't really look at them much though. Propane (LP) fired boilers are a little better but the most cost effective option is NG which I am lucky enough to have. With any in-floor heat system you have to insulate the ground under the slab. The more insulation the better (to a point). The reason I asked about what you are doing in terms of ripping out your slab (maybe you don't know yet) is that you really want to not only insulate the ground under the slab but you have better efficiency if you can kind of create a cap of insulation. In my build we have to do full footers down at least 4'. Maybe it is deeper. We are on the line so it might be 6' to get under the frost line. So, that cap of insulation will go down at least 4' all the way around the garage footings on the inside of the block. This better contains the heat and keeps it from escaping through the sides of the slab. Then there is more insulation on the ground that is under the slab. As well as a vapor barrier. I have read pros and cons as to if it is dirt, VB, insulation, slab or dirt, insulation, VB, slab. We are also taking the additional steps to taping seams and offset two layers of insulation so the insulation acts as a VB as well. There will be rebar and PEX which is going to be filled with water and pressurized during the cement pour. Then they purge it and fill with glycol when it goes into operation. You mainly want to keep it filled and pressurized during the pour so that if there is a leak, it can be detected and patched if needed. Also filled with water so it doesn't try and float to the top of the cement.

One option that I considered gets back to my existing tankless water heater. As I mentioned it can be operated in boiler mode. For instance I think it is currently set to 122F as that is my hottest point of use. I can set it to 160F or even maybe a little higher. You wouldn't want to do that for hot water use but what it lets you do is get into what is called an indirect water heater. Picture a combination of a tankless unit, some re-circulation pumps and a large insulated water holding tank. You would use the tankless unit to heat the water in the holding tank which then feeds all your hot points of use. There is a coil inside this tank that is on a closed loop back to the in-floor heat system which is filled with glycol. As the floor system calls for heat, it starts a pump that circulates the glycol through that loop in the indirect water tank. The re-circulation pump will get turned on if the temp of that tank drops below a certain level which fires up your boiler to reheat the water in the tank or as water is used at various points of use more water is heated and pumped into the tank. I considered this option. Cost wise it was about the same. The price of that tank and all the pumps was more than just another dedicated boiler. I really don't have a good place for the tank and I really like our tankless system and endless hot water. So, we are skipping that indirect heat. I think this system is what you kind of described.

Another option is one of those outdoor boilers that are wood fired. I am not going down that path but it would work.

 

[sennister]

As far as electric wires in slab. I mentioned we did this in a bathroom. I will say that sounds interesting but I don't know how well it would work. Just thinking of the system we have, It would run 24x7 and I don't think it would ever heat the slab we are pouring. Well it would heat the slab a bit but not the room. Keep in mind if it is -20F out and you have been at work all day. That is a lot of steel that you are pulling into the space that is -20F. Even with a hot slab it takes time to counteract that. It isn't so much an issue of opening the door as much as bringing in a frozen chunk of steel that also has a lot of thermal mass. Maybe you are thinking of something more substantial than what I worked with. They are just thin wires that were designed to go over the cement board that is the base under the ceramic tile. My parents have it on slab as it is in a basement bathroom. Ours is on an upper floor so there is subfloor under it all so it isn't as bad. But I think I would consider an electric boiler with glycol filled PEX if that is all you have for a source of heat. However your best option might be a heat pump as that is forced air which provides heat and cooling. It really is difficult when you are talking a retrofit of an existing space unless you really dig into things or live in an environment where it doesn't get so blasted cold.

There are several options but the biggest thing you have to decide is if you heat all the time or just for occasional use. It doesn't make sense for me to keep my pole barn at 60F all winter. We did that the first winter we lived here because the thermostat would only go down to 60. We were paying $1200-1400 a month in electric and gas bills. If I was out there every day all day long it would be worth it. Truth is, I get out there in the winter more like maybe every other weekend. Depending on how busy we are.

 

[sennister]

Dave:

I would like to ask you about your in-floor heat.
Will it be hot water or electric heating cables?

At some point I need to re-do the concrete floor in my garage and was wondering about in-floor heat since it is a small garage- only about 12' X 21'. I don't have hot water heating in the house so it would have to be electric heating cables. I did very little preliminary research so far. From what I understand the hot water in-floor heat works great because the heat is always there and always available- especially if it runs off of the same system that is already running to heat the house. I read several places that the electric is not so great for a concrete garage floor. I read that it takes to long to heat up, the recovery time is long if the garage door is opened and the garage is cooled off and it consumes a lot more power ($$) to do the job relative to hot water. Many places I looked at didn't even recommend it for a concrete garage floor.

Since your construction decisions have been made and you have decided in-floor heat is a good idea I would appreciate your thoughts about it- especially if it will be electric heating cables.

If you have specific questions on this stuff or would like to bounce ideas off others that have been down your path a great forum for these questions is Garage Journal.

The Garage Journal

www.garagejournal.com

It is where I did most my research. Like here and any other forum. There are people set in their ways and can't see beyond their own beliefs that might be influenced by their own environmental factors. Maybe they live in Miami and simply don't get why anyone would spend this kind of money on anything beyond a car port and don't understand building codes when it comes to footings below frost line. Or they haven't built new and have only delt with retrofit and in that case it gets a lot harder to justify in floor heat unless you are already ripping up the slab for some other reason. $25K in cement work buys a lot of forced air heating. Take the site with a grain of salt but there are a lot of people there that know a lot about this. In general heat pumps come up quite often as a realistic option if in the retrofit category when NG isn't an option and you are considering electric heat.