Especially in the winter, it is nice to wake up to warm bathroom floors. Most bathrooms have floors made of cold tile and by installing radiant floor heat, you can turn that cold tile into something that is not such a shock to wake up to.
The two rooms where many people choose to install radiant heat are the bathrooms and kitchens. This is because those floor surfaces are usually not carpeted and having warm floors is especially nice in those rooms. It used to be that more homes had radiant heat throughout the house. You might remember your Grandmas house having metal radiators somewhere in every room that you couldnt touch because they were so hot.
That type of radiant heating has been abandoned in modern homes but it doesn’t mean you cant have radiant floor heat installed in your bathrooms and kitchens. By adding floor heat to those two rooms, you will give them a special touch of luxury that you will enjoy for years and it will also make your home easier to sell.
There are two kinds of radiant heat but the electric kind is the easiest and cheapest to install. Electric radiant heat works just like a toaster in that electricity heats up metal coils and transmits heat. Radiant electric heat is easier to install in homes that are already built than the other kind of radiant heat which is hydronic heat. With hydronic heat, hot water is pumped through pipes under the house which heats the floors. Installing all the piping properly so that it will safely carry hot water throughout the house is much more expensive and usually only done in houses that are being built.
Radiant heat is a great kind of heat because it is silent but it is more expensive that the forced air heat that is in so many of our houses today. If you are looking into heated floor cost, you should realize that radiant heat is best if it is installed while a house is being built. That doesn’t mean you can’t have it installed later but it is cheaper and easier to have it put in up front. If you are having radiant heat installed in an existing home, electric heat is probably the way to go. Having electric radiant heat pads put in under the floors is not that difficult and can be cost effective.
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