Radiant Floor Heating – The Silent, Gentle Choice

Frigid winter weather has moved in and your thoughts may have turned to how nice it would be to have radiant heat in the house on those too-cold mornings. Radiant heat is typically added to bathroom floors and possibly kitchen floors, but other rooms are neglected. That’s because the cost of decking out the whole house with radiant floor heat can be on the high side.

This is especially true if you decide to add radiant heated floors to the house in which you’re already living. But if you do decide to go ahead and add them to your home. electric rather than hydronic radiant heat might be your best choice. For just a couple of rooms, it is not worth the expense and complication of installing a hydronic system. It is easier on the budget to install electric heat in a room or two than it is to install hydronic heat.

Some lucky homeowners who have had radiant heat installed when the house was built are able to enjoy it throughout the whole house but not many homes are built that way. Without a doubt the easiest time to put in radiant heating is when a house is initially being constructed but homebuilders are always trying to cut costs and so very few homes are built with this feature now days.

If you are looking to put in electric radiant heat, be prepared to pull up the floors to place heating element beneath them. That a skilled tradesman who clearly understands this kind of job should do the work is an understatement. Provided that it doesn’t end up costing you a small fortune, your new luxury will more that pay for itself in the long run.

Radiant heat is always preferred over forced air because it is a silent and gentle heat that does not dry your skin as much. To understand what radiant heat feels like, think of sitting in the sun and feeling the warm rays cover your body. It is a heat that feels good and is able to heat the room evenly as opposed to forced air where the air is always rushing from room to room.

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Radiant Heat Is A Great Choice For Some Rooms

During the cold winter months, it is nice to wake up to warm bathroom floors. Many bathroom floors are made out of cold tile or something similar and by installing radiant heat, you can tranform that cold tile into a nice warm floor that isn’t such a shock in the mornings.

People commonly choose to install radiant heat in their bathrooms and kitchens and this is because those floors are usually not carpeted and having warm floors is nice in those rooms. In years past many homes were built with radiant heat throughout the house and it was the common heating system. You might remember your Grandmas house that had metal radiators somewhere in every room and they didn’t have any forced air systems that today’s houses are built with.

That type of heating has been abandoned in modern times and in its place is forced air heat. But that doesn’t mean you cant have radiant floor heating installed in your bathrooms and kitchens. Adding floor heat to those rooms will give them that special touch of luxury.

There are two kinds of radiant heat but the electric kind is the easiest and cheapest to install. Electric radiant heat works just like a toaster in that electricity heats up metal coils and transmits heat. Radiant electric heat is easier to install in homes that are already built than the other kind of radiant heat which is hydronic heat. With hydronic heat, hot water is pumped through pipes under the house which heats the floors. Installing all the piping properly so that it will safely carry hot water throughout the house is much more expensive and usually only done in houses that are being built.

Radiant heat is totally silent and it is much better for your skin that the forced air that is pumped through most houses today. If you are looking into how much it will cost to install heat pads under your floors, you should realize that radiant heat is best if it is installed while a house is being built. That doesn’t mean you can’t have it installed later but it is cheaper and easier to have it put in up front. Because it is so much harder to install in an older house, most people choose just to do a room or two rather than the whole house.

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Radiant Heat Is Your Best Choice

What a wonderful feeling, when you enter a friend’s house and step on floors that are warm and heated. Many of us may have considered radiant heated floor installation, but will never follow through with the thought. It seems like a great deal of annoyance to tear up your floors to gain access underneath, and the excessive price is also a deterrent.

On the rare occasions when radiant heat is installed in a home, it is most often found in the kitchen or master bathroom. Generally, it is the high-end homes that this option may be available. It is the expense, and installation headaches that will keep most homeowners from ever experiencing the enjoyment of radiant heat in their homes.

Radiant heat under your floors would be such a welcome change after a winter spent with dry heat circulating in your home. Radiant heat is different in that it does not act to swirl hot air around the house from room to room. You will never experience the drying out of your skin that comes from forced air heat, as radiant heat heats as it gradually rises. You cannot detect when radiant heat turns on as it runs completely silent.

Radiant heat is more expensive to install, and is therefore seldom seen. Homebuilders are, after all, trying to make a decent profit, and the high cost of installing radiant heat would cost them more money. It is a sad fact that most of us will never really know how great radiant heat can be.

In weighing the pros and cons of radiant floor heat, a main consideration would be your available budget. Both hydronic and electric radiant heat are quite costly. So, that is why you may find this type of heat installed in only a few rooms, the master bathroom being a popular choice. A key advantage to radiant heat is that it is much gentler to your skin in the dry winter air. You truly need to experience both the dry forced air and radiant heat to appreciate the difference.

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