Radiant Floor Heating Offers Tippytoe Comfort

Your better half got up in the middle of the night and like a shot those frozen toes are invading your personal space with the tenacity of a heat-seeking projectile. Lucky for you, the new house will have radiant floor heating – a dependable remedy for meetings with cold toes at 2 in the morning or a midwinter chill that gets hold of your bone marrow.

Under-floor heating has been employed since the Roman Empire when it was in its peak in public buildings and the villas of the well-to-do. Hot air was circulated under tile or brick, providing a radiant heat – energy that transferred heat through the floor and along to cooler objects like Roman recumbant chairs, statues, marble-topped tables and cold centurions.

With the advent of flexible PEX pipe to the United States in the 80’s, its use has rocketed as more products have been developed for the construction industry – among which have been water systems to furnish radiant floor heat. Unlike forced-air furnaces, contemporary water floor systems employing PEX plumbing products provide more homogenous heat to a room, are less drying, more economical and a whole lot quieter than older furnaces or metal steam pipes.

PEX tubing is constructed of cross-linked polyethylene, which contributes to these modern pipes durability, chemical resistance, superior mobility, a cost-efficient installment profile and bigger temperature adaptability. This polyethylene tubing can be exposed to water as high as 200 degrees Fahrenheit in heat arrangements.

There are disparate ways of setting up radiant floor heating. Many use electrical line voltage arrangements, but easy-to-use PEX piping products have made hydronic under-floor heating fashionable with both home constructors and house owners. Because the tube is so resilient, its coils can be used in a sustained length, eliminating the need for multiple joints and fittings.

Many radiant floor heating systems utilize oxygen-barrier PEX radiant tubing applied in gypsum concrete. Others integrate low-mass underlay – wood panels with sunken niches for flexible pipe.

Every reconstruction or new-construction project is well suited by one method or another, so investigate your hydronic floor heat choices fully. Do your research!