"Furry" wrote in message
There's no gauge on the return but feeling the
Pex it's obvious that the water coming back is pretty cool. The
problem: It takes at least an hour, sometimes 2, for the basement to
warm up enough that the thermostat stops calling for heat. 1200 sq ft
is a lot of concrete to heat up but isn't that a long time?

One of the drawback to radiant heat is the slow response. However, that is
not necessarily a cost factor. If the heater is firing for 2 hours at
30,000 Btu, it is using the same amount of fuel as a burner firing at
150,000 Btu for half that time. I don't know your setup so I can't say if
it is doing well or not.

You don't want to set back as far when not in use as you would the rest of
the house. One benefit, of course, is that once heated, the thermal mass
will stay warm longer so if you do want to set back, do it earlier than you
would with other heating systems. If you are using a programmable
thermostat, that that into consideration when setting the times.