We have a radiant heat system we believe was not installed correctly or according to specifications we were provided.

We were told we would have a system with a 90% condensing boiler for radiant. Instead, we have a gas water heater (Lochinvar Model number LVL 041G0). From what I understand, a gas water heater and a boiler are not the same things?

The second issue is that the tubes run from the water heater to the floor with just insulation below and floor above in the basement. There do not appear to be any type of metal transfer plates to force the heat to be conducted to the floor. This, from what I understand, is incorrect. Is this ever an acceptable way to install radiant heat? We have a large basement and the pipes run a very long way to get to the master bath.

The result of the problems seems to be that our system is extremely inefficient/ non-functional. The radiant system is in the sunroom (right over the tank) and the master bath (opposite end of the house). The water heater runs for around 12 hours a day or more, and costs a fortune to run. Even after running for hours and hours for weeks, the floor in the bathroom is still freezing and the thermostat in the bathroom attached to the radiant heat still reads 57 degrees even when we have it set for 64.

Final issue is that our installer indicated that the thermostat attached to the radiant heat reads the room temperature and not the floor temperature. The thermostat is called Watts Radiant. Is this actually true? We don't understand why this would ever be this way instead of having a thermostat that reads the floor temperature.