My wife and I recently purchased a rambling ranch built in the mid-60's, it was a model home for the neighborhood and so it has all the fancy upgrades from the time. In this case, every room on the main level except for the bathrooms has in-ceiling radiant heat. We also have a traditional HVAC system (electric as well) ducted to each room through the attic.
I kind of wrote it off when we toured the house, but now am realizing that it's going to pose some challenges. Namely - we have plans to install recessed lighting in the living room/kitchen, and ceiling fans in the bedrooms. All the rooms currently have switched outlets to accommodate floor lamps and I have always viewed that as a stupid compromise, so this is pretty important to us.
Problem is, most ceiling radiant heat is run in a tight enough coil that it's probably not realistic for us to be able to find gaps in the coil to cut a hole for each light/fan. Ceiling radiant heat fell way out of favor in the late 70s/early 80s, so there's really no replacement options and a lot of the guys who would have installed these (especially in our area) are probably now deceased. From what I understand, the near universal recommendation is that if the coil is damaged, you should not even consider trying to splice it. It's near impossible to relocate the coils too, as the traditional installation approach is to put up one layer of sheetrock, then staple or glue the coils, then install another layer of sheetrock - so I'd have to attempt to surgically remove sandwiched 65 year old sheetrock just to even have the possibility of moving the coil.
It sounds like those who still have it are enthusiastic fans, claiming that it's a more 'effective' heat than any other types of radiant. We did try it in one room despite being a humid Mid Atlantic summer, and it was surprisingly warm but in an odd way - like sitting under an IR heater in an outdoor dining area.
If we left it intact, we'd use it minimally to save on electric (we do have a 9.5kW solar system), but I do think some of these rooms will need supplemental heat. I don't think we want to do this since having overhead lighting is pretty important for us, but on the other hand if we do just pull the breakers out of the panel, then we need to identify an alternative heat source for at least the bedrooms. There is also the lingering thought in the back of my mind that it could easily turn into a fire hazard.
Has anyone here encountered ceiling radiant? Would you keep it or just get rid of it?