Case Study: Radiant Floor Warming For Our Valued Troops

Quick Facts

• Organization: Tee Shirts 4 Troops, a nonprofit founded to get clean shirts to wounded U.S. service members.
• Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
• Project: Renovation of two basement “warrior rooms” plus a shared bathroom used by recovering troops.
• Problem: Cold basement floors during Indiana winters; space heaters and carpeting did not solve it.
• WarmlyYours contribution: Donated electric radiant floor heating for the warrior rooms and two Infinity Towel Warmers.
• Outcome: Evenly heated floors at ground level, where soldiers with mobility injuries spend the most time.
• Impact to date: 13,500 T-shirts distributed by the organization.

Organization Overview: Who Is Tee Shirts 4 Troops?

Tee Shirts 4 Troops got its start when three jazz musicians on a United Services Organizations tour visited a soldier’s hospital overseas in Germany. The trio noticed how little clean clothing the troops in the hospital had during their recuperation and were told that U.S. troops wounded on the field were often flown to Germany without their duffel bags. Those bags would then take weeks to arrive.

For more than four years, Tee Shirts 4 Troops has been providing America’s finest with clean shirts to wear during their recuperation. The organization’s founder, Jim Peters, said his goal is to get a shirt out to every wounded GI out there. And while it’s a big dream, it’s one that Peters, his team and the organization’s host of sponsors are making a reality, having already distributed 13,500 T-shirts.

This is where we come in. As a supplier of premium radiant floor heating products to professionals and homeowners across the U.S. and Canada, we wanted to support Jim Peters’ group and the GIs who serve our country—just like the other sponsors of Tee Shirts 4 Troops.

The Challenge: Cold Basement Floors in the Warrior Rooms

Jim Peters has gone above and beyond just Tee Shirts 4 Troops. He also helps run a center that works with wounded soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Peters, the average amputee will have had over 35 surgeries and a quadriplegic will have undergone over 100. Peters’ team takes these troops in and helps them recuperate, alongside soldiers who return with either traumatic brain injuries or post-traumatic stress disorder.

What the “warrior rooms” are used for

Their Indianapolis building has two special spots in the renovated basement called the warrior rooms. According to Peters, these are used for wounded troops in transition — the kinds of soldiers who need a quiet place to retire and recoup. The two rehabilitation rooms share a bathroom and give soldiers a quiet place to rest, but Peters noted that the organization ran into one consistent problem: the floors were anything but cozy and warm, especially during Indiana’s winter.

Why a basement makes the problem worse

Basements sit directly against cold earth, so the slab stays cold year-round and pulls heat out of anything touching it — including bare feet. That is why heated basement floors are one of the most common radiant retrofits: forced air warms the air near the ceiling first, while the floor, the surface people actually contact, stays coldest.

In a rehabilitation setting that chill is not just a comfort issue. Recovering soldiers move slowly and spend more time in contact with the floor — sitting on the edge of a bed, transferring to a chair, crossing the room on crutches — so the coldest surface in the building is the one they touch most.

Warming the slab itself changes that. Electric floor heating turns the entire floor into the heat source, so warmth rises evenly across the room instead of collecting overhead, and every square foot of the walking path is comfortable underfoot.

Reading the room layout

The floor plan below shows how heating coverage is mapped for a single bedroom. Heating elements are laid only in the open floor area — the walking paths and the space beside the bed — and are kept out from under permanent fixtures and built-in furniture, where trapped heat serves no purpose. Planning at the drawing stage is what makes the finished floor feel uniformly warm rather than warm in patches.

The Solution: Radiant Floor Heating and Towel Warmers

When WarmlyYours first heard about Tee Shirts 4 Troops while raising money for a USO charity, we were so impressed with all that Peters’ organization had done that we donated two Infinity plug-in towel warmers. Then we decided to take it one step further once we heard about the warrior room renovations.

Why floor heating instead of space heaters

As Peters noted, if a soldier is missing a leg, scooting across the basement floor could be a frigid experience — even with carpeting. Space heaters could not fix the problem, because they warm the air near the ceiling rather than the surface people actually touch. WarmlyYours supplied electric floor heating, which distributes heat evenly and at ground level, where the soldiers need it most. For projects built directly over concrete, our slab heating systems covers how those systems go in.

The Result

According to Peters, the underfloor heating supplied by WarmlyYours regulates heat better, and because the floors themselves are made of wood, soldiers with leg injuries can move along on them more quickly. Peters said that while most of the work is done, there’s a little remodeling left in the second warrior room, which the team will tackle in the fall — so it will be ready in time for the cold winter, when some returning troops most need a warm place to rest their heads and hearts.

Like Tee Shirts 4 Troops, WarmlyYours worked to provide what it knows best: a little comfort and security for Americans who deserve it most. You can read more donation and installation stories in our case studies.

Organization reference: Tee Shirts 4 Troops (tshirts4troops.org). Quotes in this case study are drawn from an interview with founder Jim Peters.