Air Conditioners Review

Your better half got up in the dead of the night and now those frozen toes are occupying your territory with the tenacity of a heat-seeking projectile. Fortuitous for you, the new home will have radiant floor heat – a dependable remedy for meetings with cold toes at 2 a.m. or a midwinter chill that gets to your bone marrow.

Under-floor heat has been used since the Roman Empire when it existed in its heyday in state-supported constructions and the villas of the well-off. Hot air was distributed beneath tile or brick, offering a radiant heat – energy that channeled heat through the flooring and on to colder furniture like Roman reclining chairs, statues, marble-topped tables and cold centurions.

With the coming of flexible PEX pipe to the United States in the 1980s, its use has rocketed as more products have been created for the construction industry – among those have been water systems to supply radiant floor heating. Unlike forced-air furnaces, contemporary hydro floor systems employing PEX plumbing products provide more uniform heat to a room, are less drying, more cost-effective and a whole lot quieter than old furnaces or metal steam pipes.

PEX tubing is constructed of cross-linked polyethylene, which yields these high tech pipes endurance, chemical resistance, higher mobility, a cost-efficient installment profile and greater temperature range. This polyethylene tubing can be used with water as high as 200 degrees Fahrenheit in heat systems.

There are various methods of setting up radiant floor heating. Many use electric line voltage systems, but easy-to-use PEX piping products have made hydronic under-floor heating popular with both house constructors and house owners. Because the tube is so resilient, its rolls can be utilized in a continuous distance, getting rid of the need for multiple joints and fittings.

Some radiant floor heat systems employ oxygen-barrier PEX radiant piping applied in gypsum concrete. Others contain low-mass underlay – wood panels with sunken niches for flexible pipe.

Every remodeling or new-construction design is well accommodated by one application or another, so investigate your hydronic floor heating choices fully. Do your due dilligence!