Radiant Heating Systems
When considering the issue of personal comfort, it's important to fully examine the question, "Just what is comfort, and what are the elements that make a person comfortable?" It's more than simply feeling warm or not feeling cold. Most people think that comfort is a matter of supplying heat to the body. Rather, comfort is controlling the rate at which a body loses heat.
Comfort - The goal of radiant floor heating is to keep people warm, turning floors into radiators that can be zoned to provide comfortable and even heat throughout homes or in difficult-to-heat areas such as bathrooms, entryways and garages. Because the heat is delivered at floor level, it warms people, furniture and other surfaces. Warm radiant floors are ideal for today's homes and rooms with vaulted ceilings and expansive windows. The comfort system concentrates the heat near the floor - where people are located.
Efficiency - Radiant floor heating is the most efficient mode of heat delivery in existence. Floor heating is a low-temperature system and can be precisely controlled in each room. Because floor heating warms people and objects directly (as opposed to heating air), and controls the heat loss of a person, comfort may be achieved at lower thermostat settings. Floor-heating systems can provide energy savings of 20 to 40% over forced air systems. Buildings with high ceilings, large windows, high infiltration or a combination of these and other factors typically experience greater savings. Energy savings vary depending on building use, occupancy, design and construction.
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