Using Electric Radiant Floor Systems as Primary Heat Source
While many homeowners install in-floor electric heating in one room, it is also growing as a primary heat source for the whole house. Even in frigid cold cities, more and more people are using electric radiant heating to warm their spaces. Electric in-floor heating is also desirable for its cost effectiveness; oftentimes, electric radiant heating only costs about 20 cents a day.
Using Electric Radiant Heating for Your Whole Home
<p>One of the great benefits of electric floor heating is that not
only you warm your floor, but it has the potential to heat your whole room, so
even in cold cities like Chicago and Toronto, electric floor heating can be
very effective as a primary heat source. The warm floor acts as a large heating
surface, radiating heat in the whole room from the floor up. Your whole room,
from floor to ceiling, will become warmer with radiant heat. Let's talk now
about the benefits of radiant heating.</p>
<p>Comfort is the number one benefit. Every one in your family will
love the exceptional comfort of walking out of radiant heated floor. Just
imagine walking barefoot on a warm floor in your own home, and how nice that
must feel. Most likely, every single one of your customers would like to have a
radiant heated floor in their own home. Energy efficiency is another benefit of
radiant floor heating. Electric floor heating costs little to operate. Heating
a large bathroom floor is like operating three light bulbs. It will cost you
only about 20 cents per day. </p>
<p>Heating a kitchen floor is like operating six light bulbs and will
cost you only about 40 cents per day. As you can see, electric floor heating is
very energy efficient and will not add much to the electricity bill at all. To
find out exactly what the cost is to operate your electric floor heating
system, an operating cost calculator is available on our website at
warmlyyours.com.</p>
<p>Electric floor heating is also the healthiest form of heat.
Traditional heating systems like forced air systems are not only noisy, but
they also blow warm air and dust all around the house. They drive the air in
your home and they don't exactly create a healthy environment for your family.
On the other hand, radiant heat systems radiate heat evenly from the floor up.
They are silent and they do not blow dust and allergens around your house.
Radiant heat has been proven to be great for allergy sufferers and it is a
great heating source for your family.</p>
<p>When installing electric floor heating as a heat source, you need
to pay special attention to your subfloor. When the subfloor is a cement slab
or crawl space, we strongly recommend adding a layer of insulation first. This
will increase the energy efficiency of your floor warming system. Floors
installed over a cement slab or a crawl space typically get very cold. Imagine
stepping outside barefoot on a cold winter day. A cement slab almost feels that
cold. If you install your electric floor heating system without any insulation,
the cement slab or the crawl space will absorb most of the heat and the floor
will not get very warm. When installing new floors over a crawl space or a
cement slab, we highly recommend to add a layer of insulation. It will
dramatically increase the energy efficiency of your electric floor heating
system and the floor will get a lot warmer.</p>
<p>There are several types of insulation you can use. We recommend
cork. Cork is a very good insulator and most cork floors hold a high R value,
that will then keep the heat up. Simply use mastic to install your cork
installation and then position your electric floor heating system right on top
of the cork. There are also insulated backboards out there that would also work
very well. The Warmly Yours technical support staff can guide you during the
project with proper advice, but definitely think about insulation when dealing
with cement slabs or crawl spaces.</p>
<p>Some rooms have very poor insulation overall. For instance, sun
rooms, we have large windows, very thin walls and a lot of heat loss. In these
types of rooms, electric floor heating may not provide quite enough heating
capacity to keep that room at a comfortable 70 or 75 degrees, even when
insulation is installed over the subfloor. If you are planning to use electric
floor heat as the only source of heat in that room, we recommend that you get a
heat loss calculation. This will tell you precisely if electric floor heat can
be used as a primary heat source. You can use our online tool, called the Heat
Loss Calculator, found at warmlyyours.com, to get a free heat loss calculation.
You can also call our technical support staff, and we will be happy to do the
calculation for you at no cost.</p>
<p>Remember, we at Warmly Yours are the experts who can give you the
right advice. We are there for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so please
feel free to reach out to us whenever you need help. </p>