Posts Tagged ‘heat’
Forced Air Heat vs. Radiant Heat
Radiant heat is loved by everyone once they encounter it for the first time. It is unfortunate that few houses are now built with this type of heat like they were in years past. Radiant heat is more expensive to put in a house than other kinds of heat and so builders usually install the cheaper kind. Forced air heating and cooling is what is most common now and if you want radiant heat you have to install it yourself.
Radiant heat is best installed when a house is being built because it involves putting pipes or wires under the floors. It is best to put it in right from the start as the house is constructed. If you want to have radiant heat in an older house, most people opt to install it in just a few rooms such as the master bathroom and kitchen.
Radiant heat can be installed two different ways. The first is hydronic radiant heat and that is heat generated from hot water moving through pipes that are beneath the floor. Obviously, with water involved and being heated, a hydronic heating system is both expensive and difficult to install to make sure nothing leaks. If you want your house to be heated in this fashion, it is best to have it put in as the house is being built.
Bathrooms And Radiant Heat Go Together
Especially in the winter, it is nice to wake up to warm bathroom floors. Most bathrooms have floors made of cold tile and by installing radiant floor heat, you can turn that cold tile into something that is not such a shock to wake up to.
The two rooms where many people commonly choose to install radiant heat are the bathroom and kitchen. The floor surfaces in those two rooms are usually not carpeted and it is especially nice to have those two floors heated. In the old days, more homes had radiant heat throughout the house but that is a rarity in modern day construction. You might remember your Grandma’s house having metal radiators somewhere in every room? That was radiant heat and there wasn’t the forced air heating systems we have now.
While that type of heating has been abandoned in modern times, it doesn’t mean you cant have radiant floor heat installed in your bathrooms and kitchens. If you add floor heat to those two rooms, you will be giving them a luxurious touch that you will enjoy for many years.
Radiant Heat Is Preferred By Most People
The cost of radiant heat is something many people are interested in and it varies with what you want to have done. If you are hoping to have radiant heat throughout the whole house, it is best to have it installed when the house is being built. This is because it is no easy task to lay the pipes for hydronic radiant heat or to install the electric pads if you choose electric radiant heat.
Most homes are now built with forced air heating and redoing everything can be costly. For this reason, many people choose to have radiant heat installed in only a select few rooms that are most often the master bathroom and the kitchen.
If you do want to have radiant heat in your home, a good choice is to have it installed in just a room or two. The two common places people have it put in is under the master bedroom bathroom floors and under the kitchen floors. Both of these places are where you might be tempted to walk with your bare feet and so heated floors are very nice. You can install electric radiant heat by putting electric pads under the floors and it is not overly difficult.