HEATED CONCRETE FLOOR

After radiant floor heating was initially unveiled into brand new houses, back in the 50’s, it relied on making use of a relatively small water boiler in the property, and a system of copper pipes that were placed into a slab of concrete, that formed the floors of the house. Unfortunately, the copper pipes did not have a long life span, and when they decayed, split or broke, it was a difficult and expensive process to repair them.

Today, science has refined this hydronic radiant floor heating into one of the most economical and relaxing heating solutions in the market. Today plastic tubing is used instead of copper, for its longevity and heat transfer in concrete. Then each room is divided into a zone, and each zone can be individually connected and managed by a single boiler, which again are much more efficient and less noisy than their fifties counterparts.

The reason that radiant heat concrete floor is so efficient is because of the thermal mass of concrete. The thermal mass of a particular object is its capacity to retain heat, and its capability to store that heat during varying air temperatures around it. But with concrete, it is gradually heated from the water inside it, but once warm, it radiates its heat over a substantial surface area, and even when the hot water source has been turned off, the concrete slab retains its heat for many hours, continually warming the air in the room, even though the source has been turned off, and you are not adding to heating bills. This has evident benefits over forced air systems, that to keep a room at a constant temperature involves the continuous use of the fans and airflow.

People typically look at electric radiant heating as a practical alternative to this method, on account of its benefits of being simpler and cheaper to install, and also that the pads that this method use do not hold their heat for very long, and therefore require more constant heating, and consequently higher heating bills. Another option to changing your entire floor is to have hot water running through the joists of your house, but this method relies on heating the air under the floor, which is not as effective as heating concrete, and does not retain its heat once the power is off.

So there are a number of options and aspects to consider, but if you have the option, using concrete floor radiant heating is the most cost effective and efficient heating option presently available.

For more information on concrete floor heating, please visit our website about radiant floor heating.

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