Do you always wear slippers to avoid stepping on the cold floor? Are you looking for a way to maximize your home comfort? Heated flooring is an effective solution for homeowners looking to combat the chilly winters of the Mid-Atlantic and can help to create a more luxurious interior space. Often found in bathrooms, the heated flooring trend is extending to all rooms of the house.
The Benefits of Radiant Floor Heating
Heated floors are used to create a spa-like experience in the master baths of many of our clients’ homes in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. However, they provide numerous benefits aside from luxury, serving as an alternative to traditional heating methods in small applications and as a secondary heating source in larger rooms. Consider the following:
- Radiant floor heating increases thermal comfort, warming not just the flooring itself but the room as a whole. The temperature is higher at floor level than the remainder of the room to prevent heat loss through the feet, and most people tend to feel the same comfort with this type of heating system as with others set 3 – 5 degrees warmer.
- Radiant floor heating also helps to improve energy efficiency. When you use heated floors to warm a room, you can set the temperature a few degrees cooler on your primary HVAC system and remain just as comfortable, losing less heat through the ceiling or roof area. Although they can be relatively expensive to install, HouseLogic estimates savings of 25 to 50% on your energy bills!
- Heated floors are an out-of-site heating method. Other heating systems can be bulky and detract from the aesthetic of a room design. But if you just use heated floors to warm a room, such as your bathroom, it’s kept hidden away.
- Heating flooring provides quiet, clean operation. Unlike many other heating systems, heated floors make no noise. Because the warm air is released through the floor rather than forced out, it tends to circulate less dust and has less of an impact on allergies and asthma.
- Radiant floor heating is extremely durable. This type of heating system is as strong as the flooring itself to last you many years.
Heated Flooring Types & Materials
Heated flooring can be ideal for warming bathrooms that get heavy foot traffic and bedroom floors that tend to be so cold to the touch on winter mornings, for example.
Radiant floor heating is offered in two different types of systems. It operates using either electricity or water, though electrical systems are more common.
The best type of material to cover a radiant floor heating system is one that’s thermal. We recommend ceramic tile, known to be incredibly effective in heated flooring applications, over other options like vinyl or wood.
Install Heated Floors in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Maryland
Installing heated floors can be a complex process and will likely involve ripping up your flooring. Because of this, we recommend installation be completed during a complete remodel of the room. It’s also important to use an experienced remodeler that can successfully deal with any challenges along the way and will provide you with an accurate estimate.
