underfloor heating

[cd34]

I think the theory is that a heated floor will radiate heat and the room will be kept warm rather evenly since heat rises. The flooring subsurface is much better at retaining heat than air is -- especially when the air isn't humidified. I can see where having a heated floor would be nice in the northern latitudes.

There is a building in China or Japan where the building's air temperature is maintained at 60F in the winter, and each office has individual ceramic heaters. They found it more efficient to heat a small area with a tiny heater than to heat an entire floor.

If you light a match and hold it in your room, the room doesn't warm up, but, if you hold it under your finger, you feel the heat rather quickly.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by cd34

I think the theory is that a heated floor will radiate heat and the room will be kept warm rather evenly since heat rises. The flooring subsurface is much better at retaining heat than air is -- especially when the air isn't humidified. I can see where having a heated floor would be nice in the northern latitudes.

cd is, of course, absolutely correct. When I was helping my brother-in-law build his home, we installed in-floor radiant heating in his basement and the two floors of the house. It's very efficient and super comfortable. The furnace itself is about the size of an average suitcase and hangs on a basement wall. But since he has the three floors separated by thermostatically controlled zones, there is an eight feet wide section of wall which is nothing but copper manifolds, zone valves and a colorful arrangement of tubing.

Other beautiful things about radiant heating is the lack of floor registers, baseboards and cold air returns which tend to dictate the positioning of furniture since they shouldn't be blocked.

What Greenie said is the biggest issue. You wouldn't want to frame up a new wall after installing the radiant tubing. My brother-in-law messed up and started using nails in his hardwood flooring gun which were going straight through the subfloor and endangering the tubes. Luckily, he discovered it before he hit anything and switched out the nails. Ooopsy.