Aaron, I thought that too but was quite obviously pointed out that flexwatt is a radiant heat source. 'calorique radiant heat systems' in either event it still is not convection and does not heat air well.Originally Posted by The Serpent Merchant
The set up you are describing is actually what I use I have 4 inch for the hot spot and the low wattage 17 inch for the cool area. I need to use a herpstat pro (herpstat 4) to control it. I also found the the top and bottom due to the cool room temps very different (10º) So I needed to heat the top 3 and bottom 2 separately. Why the 4 tstat probes to control one rack. Top and bottom warm and cool. This however only added a few degrees to the air temps adding insulation added a few more. The kicker for me is a huge amount of effort but it added 5 or more degrees.
Where the tub slides on all but the bottom, a routed a channel 1/8 deep and wide. I marked where the tub sits and from about 2 inches from the back to the same on the front this is how long the channel is. At the ends of the channel I drilled a hole through. In my case the 'shelves' are 1/4 thick so I had to redesign all of them to take a thicker material and change the rack body to work with it. I have 3 channels on each layer. The open top is covered with Al tape the flexwatt is over that. The openings to the channel are the two holes from the lower layer air can circulate though the channel become warmed by the tape and exit mine runs well enough that you can feel with a wet finger the air moving. As the flexwatt is regulated the air temp varies with it as well.
It can be done but is not a easy solution. The simpler solution is to heat the room and if this proves to be far too costly (mine is) I might give thought to giving up on the rack all together and using an enclosure system that has other heating options aside from strictly radiant heat.
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