Radiant Floor Heat Provides Tippytoe Comfort

Your spouse got up in the middle of the night and right away those cold toes are invading your personal space with the persistency of a heat-seeking projectile. Fortuitous for you, the new home will be sporting radiant floor heating – a dependable cure for meetings with cold feet at 2 a.m. or a midwinter chill that extends to your bone marrow.

Under-floor heat has been employed since the Roman Empire when it was in its heyday in public constructions and the villas of the prosperous. Hot air was circulated under tile or brick, offering a radiant heat – energy that channeled heat through the floor and along to colder objects like Roman reclining chairs, statues, marble-topped desks and frosty centurions.

With the advent of resilient PEX pipe to the United States in the 1980s, its use has taken off as new products have been produced for the construction industry – among which have been hydro arrangements to supply radiant floor heat. Unlike forced-air furnaces, modern hydro floor systems utilizing PEX plumbing products provide more uniform warmth to a room, are less drying, more effective and a whole lot quieter than old furnaces or metal steam pipes.

PEX tubing is made of cross-linked polyethylene, which contributes to these space-age pipes endurance, chemical resistance, high mobility, a streamlined installation profile and larger temperature adaptability. This polyethylene tubing can be exposed to water as hot as 200° Fahrenheit in heat schemes.

There are disparate modes of installing radiant floor heat. Some use electrical line voltage arrangements, but easy-to-use PEX piping products have made hydronic under-floor heating popular with both home builders and home owners. Because the tube is so resilient, its rolls can be employed in a continuous length, eliminating the need for multiple joints and fittings.

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

Each remodeling or new-construction project is better accommodated by one application or another, so investigate your hydronic floor heating choices fully. Do your research!