Radiant Floor Heat Proffers Tip-Toe Comfort

Your partner got up in the dead of the night and straightaway those cold toes are occupying your territory with the tenacity of a heat-seeking missile. Good for you, the new house will have radiant floor heating – a dependable remedy for encounters with frozen toes at 2 a.m. or a midwinter chill that extends to your bone marrow.

Under-floor heat has been in use since the Roman Empire when it was in its heyday in public buildings and the villas of the well-heeled. Hot air was distributed under tile or brick, supplying a radiant warmth – energy that channeled warmth through the flooring and along to colder objects like Roman reclining chairs, statues, marble-topped desks and frigid centurions.

With the advent of elastic PEX pipe in the United States in the 80′s, its use has taken off as more products have been introduced for the construction industry – among which have been hydronic systems to provide radiant floor heat. Unlike forced-air furnaces, state-of-the-art hydro floor systems utilising PEX plumbing products allow more homogenous heat to a room, are less drying, more efficient and a whole lot quieter than old furnaces or metal steam pipes.

PEX tubing is made of cross-linked polyethylene, which generates these space-age pipes durability, chemical resistance, high mobility, a cost-effective installation profile and greater temperature range. This polyethylene tubing can be used with water as high as 200 degrees Fahrenheit in heating schemes.

There are disparate modes of installing radiant floor heating. Some use electric line voltage schemes, but easy-to-use PEX tubing products have made hydronic under-floor heat fashionable with both house builders and house owners. Because the tubing is so flexible, its coils can be applied in a straight distance, doing away with the requirement for multiple joints and fittings.

Several radiant floor heating arrangements employ oxygen-barrier PEX radiant hosing employed in gypsum concrete. Others incorporate low-mass underlay – wood panels with recessed niches for flexible piping.

Each reconstruction or new-construction design is best accommodated by one method or another, so look into your hydronic floor heating choices fully. Do your due dilligence!