Tag Archives: Radiant floor heating

Articles

Radiant Floor Heating

The silent operation of a radiant floor heating system free from drafts or flying dust particles is why these systems are becoming so popular. Home owners are searching for ways in which they can create a healthier environment to live in. Forced air systems can spread dust, pollen and germs while a radiant floor heating system uses electric resistance cables under the floor or PEX tubing that circulates heated water. Radiant heating systems warm floors to a comfortable level and naturally spreads its heat to objects in the room making your living areas much more enjoyable. Heating your home with radiant heated floors will make breathing easier and not dry you out. Imagine your floors without the need for vents or hot air blowing down from the ceiling.

Evenly distributed radiant heat in your floors will allow you to turn down your thermostat two to four degrees. This can reduce energy costs by 10-40 percent and can be verified with your local utility company. This setback to your thermostat can happen because a radiant floor heats from the ground up and delivers the heat through objects not air. This makes the lowest three feet of your home the most comfortable where a forced air system loses its heat to the ceiling and is required to heat from the top down. Delivering heat by air also makes it easy to escape and increase your overall heat loss.

A good analogy for radiant floor heating to forced air is a car that has heated seats and a forced air heater/furnace. The forced air in a car can dry you out and can become uncomfortable and is difficult to dial in because of the heat loss due to its air delivery. A heated seat will provide you with quick results and will remain warm long after it is reduced or turned completely off. The heated seat actually warms your body and the car seat, not the air. Forced air will over time will inefficiently heat objects but with the negative side effects of dry air, dust and pollen.

If you are interested in discovering your options for a radiant floor heating system call one of our trained representatives at 888.488.9276. Our staff will match your budget to a radiant floor heating system that best meets your heating goals.

Radiant Heat News

Proper Insulation for Radiant Floor Heating

Improve the Performance of Your Radiant Heated Floors

You may have seen an increase in the number of radiant floor heating systems being installed in new construction projects. Radiant heat technology is more popular and affordable than ever, and more consumers are enjoying the benefits of radiant heat.

Heated bathroom floor

Proper radiant heat installation requires an effective insulation beneath your radiant floor heating system. The response times of radiant heating systems are quicker and much more consistent thanks to the specific physical characteristics of proper ground insulation. Insulation provides critical protection for any radiant heated floors. Insulation decreases heat loss below the slab, allowing the radiant floor heating system to perform more efficiently and accurately in the face of drastic temperature shifts.

Think of it as laying a warm blanket beneath your radiant heated floor, allowing your radiant floor heating system to operate properly and most efficiently. You don’t want to spend your precious money on heating an already cold ground and losing much of the generated heat beneath your radiant floor heating. Proper ground insulation will catch the heat and throw it back upward where you want it, instead of allowing the valued warm air to seep needlessly into the ground below your home. Radiant floor heating is showing up more and more and home builders need to be aware that laying the proper foundation is key to having a radiant heated floor system operate at 100 percent.

Call a radiant heat expert at Warmzone (888.488.9276) to learn more about ground insulation for heated floors and the radiant floor heating system that is best for you.

Articles

Electric Radiant Floor Heating vs Baseboard Heating (Part I)

The Battle of the Home Heating Titans

For years baseboard heating has been the home heating system of choice for many consumers. Relatively cheap and easy to install, baseboard heating systems were installed in new homes in the 70s, and without knowing their other options, consumers have stuck with it—until now.

Radiant heated floors are quickly trumping baseboard heating as the titan of the home heating market. With its superior heating capabilities and maintenance-free logistics, radiant heating is persuading consumers everywhere to make the switch from baseboard heating to radiant heating.

Heated hardwood floor

By taking a look at how the two different systems work and their pros and cons, you’ll quickly see that saying goodbye to baseboard heating is the best decision you’ll ever make as a homeowner.

Weighing the Differences
While both baseboard heating systems and electric radiant heating systems use similar concepts, they are certainly not created equal.

Efficiency: Baseboard heaters aren’t exactly known for their efficiency. Heating a whole room with a baseboard heater can take quite a while, so you have to plan ahead if you want the room to be warm when you’re home. Because they take so long to heat up, baseboard heaters can quickly rack up your electricity bill.

Because electric radiant floor heating heats the floor and the objects around it, it takes half the time to heat up a room. Radiant floor heating is 100 percent effective, even at 50 percent capacity. Additionally, 100 percent of energy consumed by your radiant heating system is used to heat the room.

Installation: Baseboard heaters are relatively easy to install, but you have to waste a large amount of wall space to do it. What’s more, baseboard heaters are quite unsightly and noisy, and they must be strategically placed as to not conflict with furniture placement.

While heated floors require a little more elbow grease to install, it’s not difficult. Any motivated do-it-yourselfer can install heated floors. Additionally, radiant heated floors require no wall space, and you don’t have to worry about an unsightly heater sticking out of your wall. After all, what’s a warm room if it’s an ugly room?

Maintenance: Baseboard heaters use heat coils that need to be frequently vacuumed. Dust on the coils reduces the effectiveness and efficiency of the heater, taxing your heating bill and reducing the lifespan of the system in general. What’s more, a dirty heater makes your house smell like burnt dust—not the most pleasant smell in the morning.

Radiant heated floors require absolutely no maintenance. It’s as simple as that. There are no moving parts or coils to clean, and with the high-quality heat cable and thermostat, you can count on your floors to provide warmth for years to come.

Safety: Consumers with baseboard heating systems must take great care to keep furniture and other objects away from the heater. This not only interferes with design decisions, but also presents a serious safety hazard. A home in Colorado was destroyed after two suitcases leaning against a baseboard heater ignited, causing $50,000 in damages.

Radiant floor heating is guaranteed to be safe. The heating cable used is safely insulated and uses no high voltage, no combustible gases, and doesn’t create any hot surfaces.

( Continued; Read Part II )

Radiant Heat News

Radiant Heat Could Never Be a White Elephant Gift

A Gift Like Radiant Floor Heating Would Win Big Points

With the holidays rapidly approaching do you find yourself scratching your head as to what would be the perfect gift for that special someone? We have a little hint that might get you off the naughty list and onto the “oh boy, are you ever a shining hero on a white horse” list. Giving the gift of warmth and comfort and luxury is closer than you think. I can guarantee that if you give the gift of radiant heat you will never find it in a white elephant gift pile as someone tries desperately to get rid of it. No, radiant heat will earn you major points at home or with family or with whoever you think would enjoy the glowing gift of radiant floor heating.

Radiant floor heating is more affordable than ever, so you can actually feel guilt-free about this precious gift of floor heat. Radiant heating systems are also easier than ever to install so you won’t have to muddle through a major home improvement project that uproots your lives through the busy holiday months. Many radiant heating systems can be retrofitted to your existing floors so there isn’t a lot of down time as you cross over from blasé home heating to “wow”radiant heated floors. If you commit to give radiant heat this holiday season we can pretty much guarantee you’ll see many smiles not just on the day you announce this coveted gift, but for many, many days and years to come.

Radiant Heat News

Secretly Vow to Enjoy Radiant Floor Heating

Radiant Floor Heating is a Decision You Won’t Regret

Ok, here’s the deal, if you don’t know much about radiant floor heating you need to get up to speed and fast. You’ll miss the radiant heating boat and trust us, there are a lot of people clamoring to jump aboard and enjoy the warming effects of warm floors. You should secretly vow right now to treat yourself to the luxurious, yet remarkably affordable joy of radiant heated floors. There is nothing quite like stepping sans sock onto an otherwise cold surface only to find it surprisingly and appealingly warm. Those first steps taken on a radiant heated floor will make you wonder why you didn’t take this vow sooner.

Radiant heat provides constant and consistent heat throughout your floors, warming everything around it, unlike forced air systems that blow warm air that rises quickly and settles near the ceiling and sneaks out the cracks of your walls, causing the whole system to kick on once again to replenish what has been lost. Forced air systems create more allergies with all that air and dust moving around, a problem easily avoided with radiant floor heat. With radiant heating the radiant heat cables beneath the surface of your floors generates warmth that permeates the surface and all the spaces around it leaving your living space inviting and comfortable. Keep this vow to treat yourself to something irresistible and warm and you’ll soon realize that radiant floor heating is a decision you won’t end up regretting.

Radiant Heat News

Radiant Heating 101

The number of types of radiant heating systems available for residences or businesses is awfully mind-boggling. There’s really a lot of selection for homeowners to choose from. Today we’ll discuss the electric cable heating system kind of radiant heaters.

Electric cable heating systems are gaining popularity in as radiant floor heating systems and are ideal for heating smaller areas (10-300 square feet) like bathrooms, kitchens, and sun rooms. These systems are comprised of a thermostat and a heating cable. On some systems, the cable will be shipped to you as a large spool of cable. These systems are oftentimes less expensive, and give you the ability to space the cable how you want and customize a layout that will heat every square inch of your floor. Other systems have the cable attached to a plastic mesh or tape to create a mat to maintain its proper spacing.

Every available cable system is equally effective, so when determining which radiant heating system to purchase, you should look at the warranty of the product, along with the ease of installation. Some cables must be embedded in a separate layer of concrete or mortar, whereas other systems can simply be installed in the thinset.

Radiant Heat News

Low Profile, Electric Underfloor Heat

Efficient, Discreet Radiant Heat

Radiant heat has been around many years now for very good reasons. Electric underfloor heating is just plain hard to beat when it comes to ways of providing efficient heat for your home or business. I’m sure you have heard of heated floor technology by now. Rows of heat cable, mats or other heating elements are laid out on the subfloor and the finish surface is applied over that. ComfortTile floor heating cable is a proven, and commonly chosen radiant heat system that is easy to install, and has become the workhorse of radiant heating systems. ComfortTile systems offer a single point connection, allowing you to connect one end to the thermostat and be done. No need to “loop” or connect the other end to a controller.

FoilHeat and FloorHeat are also excellent choices when there is need to keep the profile extremely low. Both floor heating systems are almost paper thin, and the low profile also makes FloorHeat idea for discreet roof heating systems (aka, RoofHeat STEP). Both FoilHeat and FloorHeat systems come in rolls that are conveniently rolled out for easy installation. Virtually any finish surface can be applied over the top. The FloorHeat system is also a low-voltage, self-regulating floor heating system.

One of the nice features of a radiant heated floor system is that you program or control zones separately, so you can shut down any rooms that you aren’t using. There is not a more comfortable and energy-efficient heat solution than an electric radiant floor heating system. It’s simply a heat that can’t be beat.

HOTNEWS

Back on Track with a Heated Driveway

Heated Driveway System in Illinois Paves the Way to Big Savings for one Warmzone Customer

When a Warmzone customer in rural Illinois found he did not have the resources to heat his entire driveway as originally planned, Sales Manager, Bryan Morris, offered a reasonable alternative. “Tire tracks were a great option in this scenario,” he explained, “because you can still get a heated portion that allows you to drive in and out, without breaking the bank. After consulting with the customer and our design team, we laid out the options (verbally and with drawings) before deciding on a more cost-effective, two-track heated driveway solution. Ultimately, heating two tire tracks (500 sq.ft.), as opposed to heating the entire 1,250 sq.ft. driveway, resulted in a $3,900 cost savings.”

Retrofitting asphalt driveway with heated tire tracks-1      Retrofitting asphalt driveway with heated tire tracks-2

Another consideration was the lack of available power. “To heat an entire driveway would have required a large number of amps from the home’s electrical power panel,” Morris stated. “Most homes only have a 200 amp panel, yet it takes approximately 180 breaker amps per 1,000 square feet to heat an entire driveway.”

The two-track radiant heated driveway system required installation of four Warmzone ClearZone snow melting mats, a 200-amp Warmzone electrical timer panel, an aerial mounted moisture/temperature snow sensor, a remote manual control unit and an NEC marker plate. Tire tracks were easily installed by rolling out the mats like sleeping bags. A protective asphalt layer was then raked over the tire track mats (photo 2) before the final surface coat was applied. “We use an asphalt machine that straddles the heating element to prevent damaging the heat cable,” offered Morris.

Asphalt driveway being retrofitted with heated tire tracks - 3      Heated asphalt driveway retrofitted with heated tire tracks.

The great news is that you don’t have to pour a new driveway to benefit from a heated driveway. Warmzone can customize your system to fit your needs and budget. “On this project,” said Morris, “the customer was paving the whole driveway anyway. Some customers pick other install methods, such as saw cutting, to achieve their goals.”

Saw cutting is cutting grooves or paths and inserting the heat cable in areas where heat is desired. With certain driveway heating systems, it is also possible to pave over the mats and create the appearance of a seamless transaction. “You can cut out the area you want to heat and then pave only that area,” Morris added. ClearZone is used under cement, asphalt and pavers on a regular basis.

Flexible options make heated driveway solutions a very popular equity booster for homeowners, and are becoming a popular home improvement option. “On average,” Morris stated, “the overall materials (cable, electrical and auto sensors) cost $6.00 per sq.ft. for 1,000 sq. ft., and the operating cost per 5-hour storm is $18.00, or $3-4 per hour depending on the state the heated driveway system is installed in and the power company’s cost per kilowatt hour.”

While the initial cost of installing a radiant heated driveway system may seem a bit daunting, the benefits of driveway heating are well worth the initial investment, the most obvious being convenience. Heated driveways don’t require shoveling, harmful salt and chemical applications or expensive snow removal services. Instead, driveway heating systems provide a safe, thorough snow removal solution with curb appeal, solving snow  removal challenges posed by problematic driveways, steps, and other heavy traffic areas.

Heated driveway systems are fully automated, so they will automatically turn on or off when needed. “If it snows at 3 a.m.,” Morris smiled, “our customer will wake up to a clear driveway. He now has a reliable, efficient snow removal solution.”

Project Spotlight – Colorado Homeowners Install Solar Powered Radiant Floor Heating System

When two Colorado homeowners decided to build a new home from the ground up, they had two main objectives in mind. They wanted a home just for them and they wanted to be as eco-friendly as possible. One of the components they chose in their new construction was to install radiant floor heating through the 1600 square feet downstairs and 900 square feet upstairs.

After doing some research and finding Warmzone online they were pleased with the many options available for various applications and the customer support offered during the entire process.

These Rocky Mountain homeowners had several great reasons for wanting to go the radiant heat route. A major consideration was allergies and how forced air systems exacerbate this condition. Cost was another concern, as was the noise of a running furnace and the desire for a comfortable, even-air temperature throughout the home. Many customers are finding their way to radiant floor heating for some of the same well thought-out reasons.

Installing radiant floor heating cable

In order to accommodate the necessary electricity needs for a radiant floor, they installed 28 solar panels to meet the demand of the electric heat. This means they are using electricity solely produced by them, helping to keep costs down and mother earth smiling.

This project called for ComfortTile heat cables and a low-voltage floor heating system laid under a variety of flooring throughout the home. The Colorado couple chose tile, wood laminate, and carpet in various parts of the home. The radiant flooring systems were chosen because of their particular capabilities and installed throughout different zones. Warmzone provided the design layouts and helped walk them through the entire process.

When asked about the benefits of using radiant floor heating, the homeowner produced a long list, including evenly spread heat through the whole house, toasty floors, noiseless heating system with easy-to-program thermostats, lack of dust, and no need to wear shoes indoors anymore.

Solar panels installed to power radiant floor heating system

Asked if they would recommend radiant floor heating to others Jane responded, “Definitely! Check out the different flooring options and applications and determine where you want the zoned heating.” Warmzone provides customers with a variety of options and helps you select the best solution for your home and budget.  Warmzone prices, product offerings and professional design services are among the best in the industry.

Articles

Radiant Heaters

Radiant heating, as opposed to warm air systems (such as a forced air unit heaters), deliver the source of heat to the floor level, not the ceiling. And since warm air rises, heating the floors proves to be the most efficient means of heating living areas.

Radiant floor heating or radiant energy is the oldest form of heating used to provide comfort and is the basis for all heating systems. Radiant energy is totally pure radiation and is absorbed by an object without physical contact with the heat source or by heating the surrounding air, as is the case with convective, forced air systems.

Under floor heaters were first used by the Romans. Initially the preserve of the rich, under floor heating became increasingly commonplace in public buildings and villas, particularly in the colder regions of the Roman Empire. The Roman system was based on hypocausts, comprising ducts that underlay the floor (itself built on raised brick piles) and flues that were built into walls. Hot air or steam from fires circulated up through this system, warming the floor and walls, with heat passing into the rooms.

More specifically, the floor was laid out as series of concrete slabs acting as radiant heaters supported by columns of layered tiles, with a furnace at the bottom of one exterior wall. By placing the fire here, the draught would take the radiant heat under the floor, and up through the walls to radiant heater chimneys located in the corners of the room.

Today we recognize the brilliance of the Romans and Koreans as early adopters of radiant heating, as the technology is still a desired method for delivering comfortable and efficient heat in our homes. Now we have radiant heaters using electric resistance cables that are constructed of highly rated materials and feature manufacturer warranties of up to 25 years.

HOTNEWS

Home Improvements for Your Feet and Your Pocket

A Smart Choice for Increasing Your Home’s Value

As the housing market crash continues, it seems that even the falling prices, incentives and rebates still aren’t enough to entice new buyers. A year ago a finished home would sell in 4.3 months, it now takes an average of 6.3 months. If you are already a home owner, switching your home from fossil fuel heating to electric radiant heat will not only help protect your investment, but provide an earth friendly efficient alternative that will make your home more attractive to potential buyers.

The best choice for radiant heating is the ComfortTile cable and mats. The CT systems continue to be Warmzone’s best selling electric heat product, and it’s no wonder considering Warmzone attaches a 10-year warranty to every system sold.

This system is the most robust radiant heating product on the market and is manufactured by an industry leader that has been providing quality products for decades.

ComfortTile floor heating mat
ComfortTile radiant floor heating cable pre-spaced in mat.

The most popular spaces for radiant heat in the home are the kitchen and bathroom areas. These areas tend to be the largest area of tile in the home, which also makes it the most difficult to heat. Forced air heating systems only warm the air, which leaves the floors cold and drafty during cold weather months. Radiant heat provides a uniform temperature from ceiling to the floor and warms all the objects and furniture it contacts.

The ComfortTile radiant heating mats are the easiest systems to install. They arrive with the ComfortTile cable already affixed to the flexible mesh, which has a convenient, easy-to-use adhesive backing.

Warmzone’s website is filled with information about how to best install the product beneath tile, stone, and concrete applications. We also have a full staff of professionals available to help you through every step if you choose to install the system yourself. If installing it yourself isn’t your thing, Warmzone has a network of installation professionals in your area that are experienced installers of our systems.

Warmzone has now made the ComfortTile mats more affordable than ever, making it easier for everyone to enjoy the warmth of radiant heating in their homes. Now is the best time to start remodel projects and ready your home for the upcoming winter months, especially if you are pouring new concrete.

Project Highlight – University of Minnesota

Warmzone was recently approached by the Forestry Resources Department of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, with a horticulture study that needed Warmzone’s help. The solution: ClearZone radiant heating cables.

The University purchased 46 reels of ClearZone heat cable to measure growth variations in different temperature plots. University officials chose the ClearZone system because of the easy-to-program thermostat, versatility and high durability in outdoor conditions.

The radiant heat system enabled Forestry Department students and faculty to create controlled environments in which to conduct accurate growth rate studies.

Warmzone radiant heat used for university horticulture study

The predominant outdoor use for the ClearZone system is to heat driveways, parking lots, sidewalks and bridges. It is especially useful on disability ramps, where safety and ease of use is most important.

In the past, radiant heat systems have been viewed as a luxury that only a few could obtain. But that’s changing. More and more consumers living in cold regions are discovering that the benefits of radiant heating far outweigh the initial cost.

The study by the University has opened up new avenues for radiant heating that have never been used before. Although still a new concept, the study proves that radiant heat has the potential to be used by home and garden enthusiasts to create a tropical oasis in just about any location to maintain ideal growing conditions.