Radiant Floor Heating Transforms A Cold Chicago Basement

This suburban Chicago basement was uncomfortably cold with inadequate heating vents providing little control over the room temperature. Resting on a cold concrete slab, the basement became an unused, unliveable room in the house. The homeowner, Heidi, decided to take matters into her own hands and turn the room into a liveable space for the whole family to enjoy time together.
To accomplish this, she installed an Environ II radiant floor heating system under her new free-floating laminate floor. When asked how she first learned about floor heating, Heidi responded “I lived in Germany where most houses have radiant floor heating, so I know all about warm floors.”


Before the flooring contractor installed the laminate wood, Heidi’s husband, Terry, first covered the entire basement floor with a layer of cork insulation . Then he laid out the Environ II radiant floor heating system right over it, all in one day! “Because the concrete slab acts as a heat sink, WarmlyYours recommended we install cork to maximize energy efficiency.” Terry added “Putting in the warm floor was much easier than I thought.”

Another important benefit that radiant floor heating adds to the basement is the reduction of moisture and mold. These moist conditions can trigger allergies and asthma. According to the American Society of Home Inspectors, “About 38% of homes have mold and fungus growth due to elevated moisture.” The drying effects of radiant floor heating reduce the moisture substantially creating a much healthier environment.


Once the Environ II system was operational and bringing supplemental warmth to the home heating system, the basement actually became too warm. Heidi says she plans to close most of the vents and simply let the radiant floor warming system do most of the work to keep the room nice and comfortable. As Heidi noted “Our kids are always running around barefoot in the basement now, it feels so much nicer.”

For more information about free-floating laminate or engineered wood floor heating, please visit:
http://www.warmlyyours.com/products/floor-heating/carpet-and-laminate/

Radiant Floor Heating In A Boston House With A Cold Kitchen Floor

The kitchen floor in this Boston home was bone-chillingly cold, located directly above an unheated garage. Walking barefoot to get your morning coffee or having the kids play on the kitchen floor close by while preparing dinner was simply out of the question.

To solve this problem, the owner installed a WarmlyYours' Environ II™ radiant floor heating system for laminate and engineered wood floors. The Environ II™ consists of a wafer thin heated mat that installs quickly and easily between the pad and the floating wood flooring. There's no messy cement required. In fact, it's so easy it can be installed by a DIYer, with only an electrician required to hardwire the thermostat.


Today the kitchen is comfortably warm and inviting despite the harsh New England winters. Even though the garage is bitter cold just inches beneath, above it the kitchen floor with the Environ II radiant floor heating system is a balmy 80 degrees keeping those toes cozy while adding supplemental warmth to the whole room.
As you can see by the photographs, the installation was completed after first installing a thin, blue-pad insulation.

When installing any electric floor heating system over a cold garage, cement slab or crawl space, it is important to keep in mind that an additional layer of insulation is recommended. Without insulation, depending on the particular job conditions, the floor may get to only 70 – 75 degrees. While this is a vast improvement over a chilly 55-degree floor, you won't get the nice warm feeling that an 80-degree floor would provide and the 'warm' floor will have almost no effect on the room temperature besides simply canceling the chilling effect of a cold floor. A few degrees can sometimes make all the difference. For more information about insulation, please visit:

http://www.warmlyyours.com/faq/mostpopularinsulation/