Concrete For Radiant Heating

After radiant floor heating  was initially launched into brand new houses, back in the 50's, it depended on making use of a relatively small water boiler in the house, and a network of copper pipes that were laid into a slab of concrete, that made the floors of the house. Unfortunately, the copper pipes failed to have a long life span, and when they decayed, split or broke, it was a troublesome and costly procedure to repair them.

Today, science has refined this hydronic radiant floor heating into one of the most economical and relaxing heating systems around. 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 economical and less noisy than their fifties counterparts.

The basis that concrete floor radiant heating is so efficient is down to 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. With concrete, it is slowly heated from the water inside it, but once it is warm, it radiates its heat over a large surface area, and even when the hot water supply has been turned off, the concrete slab retains its heat for many hours, continually heating the air in the room, even though the source has been turned off, and you are incurring no heating bills. This has obvious benefits over forced air systems, that to keep a room at a constant temperature involves the continuous on and off of the fans and airflow.

Many people typically consider electric radiant heating as a feasible alternative to this method, because 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 long, and therefore require more constant heating, and subsequently larger heating bills. Another alternative to replacing your entire floor is to have hot water flowing through the joists of your home, but this method relies on heating the air beneath the floor, which is not as effective as heating concrete, and does not retain its heat once the power has gone.

So there are a lot 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 solution presently on the market.