Radiant Floor Heating Offers Tippytoe Comfort

Your partner got up in the dead of the night and straightaway those frozen toes are invading your territory with the persistence of a heat-seeking projectile. Fortuitous for you, the new house will have radiant floor heating – a dependable curative for meetings with cold feet at 2 a.m. or a midwinter chill that reaches your bone marrow.

Under-floor heating has been employed since the Roman Empire when it existed in its peak in state-supported buildings and the villas of the well-to-do. Hot air was distributed beneath tile or brick, offering a radiant heat – energy that transferred warmth through the floor and on to colder objects like Roman reclining chairs, statues, marble-topped tables and stoic centurions.

With the advent of elastic PEX piping in the United States in the 1980s, its use has rocketed as new products have been created for the construction industry – among which have been water systems to supply radiant floor heat. Unlike forced-air furnaces, up-to-date water floor systems employing PEX plumbing products furnish more uniform warmth to a room, are less drying, more economical and a whole lot quieter than older furnaces or metal steam pipes.

PEX tubing is made of cross-linked polyethylene, which yields these modern pipes strength, chemical resistance, high mobility, a streamlined installation profile and better temperature adaptability. This polyethylene piping can be used with water as hot as 200° Fahrenheit in heating schemes.

There are different methods of installing radiant floor heat. Some use electrical line voltage systems, but easy-to-use PEX hosing products have made hydronic under-floor heat popular with both house constructors and home owners. Because the piping is so elastic, its rolls can be used in a sustained distance, eliminating the requirement for multiple joints and fittings.

Some radiant floor heat systems use oxygen-barrier PEX radiant tubing applied in gypsum concrete. Others integrate low-mass underlayment – wood panels with sunken niches for flexible tubing.

Each remodeling or new-construction plan is best accommodated by one method or another, so look into your hydronic floor heating alternatives fully. Do your homework!