Heating, Cooling and HVAC

Final Thoughts on Choosing Radiant Heat

It’s hard to express doubts about something that’s really popular. Like ground-source heat pumps, radiant-floor heating has a loyal and zealous following of builders, designers, and homeowners who consider it to be the best heating option around—and appropriate in almost any situation.

One of the reasons radiant-floor heating is so popular is that it is so much more comfortable than what most of us have experience with: older, drafty houses where there is significant floor-to-ceiling temperature stratification. If more people realized that the same—or at least a similar—level of comfort could be achieved simply by creating a really well-insulated, tight building envelope, we could be keeping a lot of people extremely comfortable while also saving a huge amount of energy, without needing radiant-floor heat. “A house with a good enough envelope to be called green—well-insulated and tight—will have a very high level of comfort no matter what type of heating system is used,” says Shapiro, “as long as that heating system is well designed.”
In homes with conventional levels of insulation and typical glazing, radiant-floor heating is an extremely comfortable heat-distribution option. It does not contribute to IAQ problems, and it might well even save a little energy if homeowners can be convinced to turn down their thermostats to a level that will provide the same level of comfort as a house without radiant heat. But in an extremely well-insulated, green home, radiant-floor heating usually is not the best option. If you’ve gone to all the effort and spent all the money to achieve a truly stand-out energy-conserving envelope with passive solar gain, why not offset that cost by dramatically reducing the cost of the heating system?

Written By:Alex Wilson