Warmzone Blog

This can fit everyone. Whether you’re building a new home, or remodeling your existing home, radiant floor heating is a great way to add comfort and efficiency to the rooms in your home that are traditionally hard to heat. For those homeowners just setting out on a home improvement or renovation project, large or small, we think it’s worth looking into what radiant floor heating can do for you and your home.

We’ve lost count of all the potential uses for radiant floor heating in homes. Bathrooms, Kitchens and Entryways are ideals places to incorporate radiant heat. Tile, marble, slate, and even hardwood are floor coverings that are cold to step onto with bare feet during winter or summer. A radiant heat product can be installed under these surfaces throughout the home and take the cold bite out of these areas. Just think: you’ll never have cold floors or feet again!

Basements are another area of the home that radiant floor heating makes sense in. Basements are one of the top requested areas to add radiant heat. Due to the fact that forced air systems heat air and hot air rises the basement is usually the living space that remains cold.

Radiant Floor Heating Tip: New construction is the best time to add radiant floor heating to a basement.

Time for a brain teaser! How can you comfortably heat your home while also enjoying a reduction in energy usage? Through radiant floor heating, of course! Delivering heat by air makes it easy to escape and increase your overall heat loss, while, through radiant floor heating, the evenly distributed radiant heat allows homeowners to turn down the thermostat two to four degrees.

As you might expect, turning down a thermostat can reduce energy costs by 10-40% and can be verified with your local utility company. This setback to your thermostat can happen because a radiant floor heats from the ground up and delivers the heat through objects not air. This makes the lowest three feet of your home the most comfortable where a forced air system loses its heat to the ceiling and is required to heat from the top down.

You might be surprised to learn that the installation of radiant floor heating is not a new development in the housing industry. Heated floors have been installed under bathroom and kitchen tile in the United States for the past decade and the warming products continue to gain popularity.

Radiant Floor Heating Tip: Many in the kitchen and bath industry expect radiant floor heating to continue to play a big role among homeowners who crave comfort features.

In today’s housing market, it’s not a bad idea to add value to your home in new and innovative ways. For example, don’t just think about renovating a bathroom, consider using radiant heaters to warm towel racks in the bathroom, or a heated floor. Can you think of anything cozier on a chilly winter morning than toasty toes when you step out of the shower?

You might be surprised to learn what a wide diversity of applications radiant heaters can be used in, an added bonus to its affordability and efficiency. Radiant heaters can be used in a number of applications, including in tiled areas, hardwood flooring, carpeted areas, cement floors, basements, and garages.

You see, radiant heaters are a type of heater that warms objects instead of air. Radiant heat uses objects, such as the floor, to heat a home. The air in the room is warmed when it comes into contact with the warmed objects. Heat loss is reduced and the radiant heat remains in the lower part of the room, warmer near feet level and slightly less so at head level, creating the perfect climate for comfort.

Radiant Heaters Tip: It doesn’t matter whether you’re building a new home or updating your current home — you owe it to yourself to check out the comfort that radiant heat has to offer.

After all this talk, you might find yourself asking just how does radiant floor heating work? It simply heats the floor with electrical resistance cables that are spread evenly and sandwiched between layers of durable fabric. All these options are easy to install yourself or can be quickly installed by your flooring installer. If you choose to install the system yourself, you will want to have a certified electrician hook up the controls to a programmable thermostat.

A great thing you’ll find is that you don’t have to cover your ceramic tile, marble, or stone floors with rugs—install radiant floor heating and show your floor’s beauty and allow them to give you the heat you want at the same time! The feeling of warmth under your feet when it’s cold and snowing outside is like no other.

Yet another bonus of radiant floor heating is that it has even heat distribution and will not effect the furniture placement as it uses no radiators or heat vents. It is easy to install, is very energy efficient. There are also no filters to change or clean, which saves you additional time and money. There is also no dust or dirt forced into your air to breathe, which is extremely beneficial for those who suffer from allergies. Radiant floor heating also offers you complete control of temperature room by room in your house. Not only that, its operation is completely quiet.

Radiant Floor Heating Tip: Not only is radiant floor heating more comfortable, but the costs of operating radiant floor heating systems are nominal as compared to other heating options.

Looking for ways to cut costs and generally be more energy efficient in your day-to-day life? Radiant floor heat combined with the proper fuel, a high efficiency heat source and good building practices will give you dramatic fuel savings and a greater level of comfort over any other system. Your radiant system could use 30% less fuel than the average new forced air heating system. Installing a high efficiency air conditioning system will result in dramatic energy savings year-round.

When you’re building or renovating your home, you might initially think there’s not much to decide on regarding home heating systems. We beg to differ! Why should you choose electric radiant heat over forced air heating? Glad you asked.

One major reason is that nothing else can compare to the extraordinary comfort offered through in-floor electric radiant heat. Combined with the proper cooling system, electric radiant floor heat offers the most efficient and comfortable living conditions available in any climate. Instead of rising like warm air, radiant heat starts by warming the coldest and closest objects from its source, which is why radiant heating systems are generally placed under floors.

Electric Radiant Heat Tip: Because radiant heat reduces dust mites and air borne allergens by 60%-90%, no other heating system can reduce allergies as effectively as electric radiant heat.

Confused about radiant heat? Well, if you have ever strolled barefoot along the beach on a sunny day and felt the warm sand underneath your feet, or held a warm mug, then you have felt radiant heat. Objects absorb radiant heat until they are the same temperature as the heat source, after which the heat slowly escapes to other areas that are colder, such as the air. The same principle is available to heat your home, using electric radiant heat.

Electric radiant heat is a unique transfer of energy that naturally searches out colder objects to warm. Instead of rising like warm air, radiant heat starts by warming the coldest and closest objects from its source. This is why radiant heating systems are generally placed under floors.

As we all know, heating a bathroom can be responsible for a significant amount of your utility bills year-round. Bathroom heating is one such energy consideration because you want the heat quickly, but for only a short period of time. Therefore traditional forced air heating systems for a bathroom can be very inefficient, and waste a lot of energy. However, electric radiant heat can make you feel comfortably warm without having to heat all the air in the bathroom.

Electric Radiant Heat Tip: While you might think it’s just a cost-efficient heating system for bathrooms and kitchens, electric radiant heat can also increase the comfort level of these rooms because they concentrate the heat in the areas that are generally the coolest, such as tile floors.