Heated floors not only sound wonderful for your feet, especially if you live in a cooler climate, but they also offer several other practical benefits, including saving you money. The radiant floor heat experts at Heavenly Heat Inc tell us exactly how you can reduce your energy bills by installing radiant floor heating.
Less Heat Loss
Heated floors are installed directly under your top flooring (i.e. your carpet, tile, wood planks, etc.) and there is no ductwork underneath them. This means that there is no heat lost to ductwork as there is with forced air and baseboard heating systems.
The more heat you can keep in your house, the lower your energy use and bills will be because the heat doesn’t have to be replaced as quickly.
Additionally, because radiant floors heat from the ground up, the heat is concentrated on the objects and people in the room instead of being lost in the air up near the ceiling. Keeping the heat lower in the room means you’re not paying to heat space that doesn’t need to be heated.
You don’t really care if the air near the ceiling is warm or not because no one is there. You want it to be warm in the middle of the room and down, which is exactly what radiant heat provides.
Lower Thermostat Temperatures
Since the heat from radiant floors doesn’t escape through ductwork or heat the ceiling instead of the usable part of the room, you’re able to lower your thermostat by a few degrees. Studies show that people who have radiant floors are able to lower their thermostat by an average of six degrees, which makes a huge difference in how often your forced air or baseboard heating system is running. The less your system is running, the less money you’re spending on this form of heating.
This doesn’t mean your rooms are any cooler. In fact, they’re probably more consistently comfortable than rooms that have baseboard or forced air heat only. This is because the heat from radiant floors is more evenly spread around the room. For instance, a room is going to be slightly warmer where the heating registers are than further away from the registers.
Off-Peak Heating Hours
Your heating rates vary based on peak and off-peak hours. When you heat your house during the day, you’re paying higher rates than if you heat it at night, but you need the house to be warm during the day when you’re up and around. With radiant heated floors, you can heat them at night during off-peak hours so they are warm when you get up in the morning. Since the heat stays in the room instead of escaping through ductwork, your floors will remain warm throughout the day, even if the system is off.
Eventually, your floors will get cold if you don’t turn your system back on, but it is a much more gradual cooling than rooms that are heated only by forced air or baseboard heat systems. Heating your floors during off-peak hours will save you a bundle.
Conclusion
Radiant flooring is more than just a luxury. It’s a way to save energy and money, which makes it the perfect heating system for almost every home.
