Radiant Heated flooring keeps more than your toes warm Stepping on toasty warm floors every day is no longer a dream, radiant heated flooring is what you need. Heated flooring originally came from the ancient Romans whom had workers below their marble floors fanning fires to heat the floors and home above. We now have radiant heating systems installed below our floors to give us heated flooring rather than hiring staff to do the job of the Roman workers. Read on if you are ready to pull up your old floor or are in the stages of a new floor.

Radiant heated flooring comes in a few different types of systems but, Electric and Hydronic systems are more popular. These systems produce infrared radiation that rises from the floor to warm up the house or building mass, making sure heat isn’t lost on contact surfaces. This Radiant Heat keeps your whole body comfortable and warm, not just your toes. This alone will have heating efforts as you won’t have the need to crank up your forced heating system during those colder times.

Electronic vs. Hydronic: Electronic heating systems utilize electric cables or mats installed below your floor, though they can put a damper on your electric bill. One way to offset the cost of electric heated flooring is to balance the cost through solar energy. The benefits of electric systems are the ease in installation, cost to install and the luxury of on demand heating. Hydronic systems use the water from your water heater to push around water tubes that are installed below your floor. This method is best for large scale heated flooring needs where you will love year round heated floors. Hydronic systems heat the slab as a whole, and can be more energy saving than electric systems. Radiant heated flooring gave your comfort a whole new level. (Hydronic heated flooring installation)

Why don’t you just turn up your heater instead of having heated flooring installed? This question comes up a lot, and for valid reasons. The answer may surprise you. Regular forced air heating systems heat the air only to have the heated air rise to the ceiling and drop back down toward to the floor once it cools. (Hot air rises)This makes it very difficult to keep your feet warm, as well as could be the reason you feel cold even though your thermostat is at the temperature you want it at. Heating flooring will allow you to heat your whole room to a comfortable temperature, and not lose the heat that you are paying for.

(Electric heated flooring installation in bathroom)

Thinking of heated flooring but don’t know what flooring material to use? All flooring materials can be used with heated flooring, though some work more effectively than others. Materials like stone, concrete, and ceramic tile conduct, transfer, and hold heat better than other materials. Carpet, to my amazement can be used with heated flooring systems – but does not encourage the flow of heat, therefore it may be crossed off your list. Vinyl and laminate flooring have certain heat limits, and may not be able to be warmed up to the temperature you are looking to achieve. Lastly wood floors should only be installed by a professional that can account for the shrinking and expanding of the wood with a heated floor system in place. This should take some of the guess work out of heated flooring.

With a better understanding of radiant heated flooring systems we all can say goodbye to freezing floors!