When most homeowners think about renovating their bathroom, they picture beautiful tiles, modern fixtures, and an overall spa-like feel. While there’s no doubt that these aesthetic upgrades are an important part of your renovation plans, you don’t want to forget about the behind-the-scenes functionality of your space. One luxury upgrade that can completely transform the feel and functionality of your new bathroom is radiant floor heating.
What Is Radiant Floor Heating?
Just as its name suggests, radiant floor heating is installed directly underneath your floor to provide heat from the ground up. Unlike traditional forced-air furnaces, radiant heating works through the property of radiant heat transfer. You can think of this as similar to how the sun warms up your skin when you’re outside.
There are two different styles of radiant floor heating, which are electric and hydronic. Electric radiant heating uses electric cables or mats that are installed directly below your flooring. They heat up very quickly and are fairly easy to install. Hydronic radiant heating uses hot water that is circulated through flexible tubing placed beneath your floor. Hydronic systems offer more efficiency but require more extensive installation.
Why Bathrooms Are Good Candidates
Bathrooms make one of the best candidates for adding radiant floor heating to your home. Traditionally, bathrooms present a unique challenge when it comes to heating due to their small space, prevalence of tile, and frequent exposure to moisture. This typically leaves them feeling cold and uncomfortable during the winter season.
Radiant floor heating addresses many of these common heating problems to create a solid solution to provide adequate heating throughout the winter for your bathroom. Because it heats from below, your tile floors will remain warm and comfortable to walk around on. There will be even heat distribution throughout your entire bathroom as the heat rises, compared to one location for a traditional forced-air vent.
Even better, having warm floors helps to evaporate water faster. This goes a long way in reducing your risk of experiencing mold and mildew in your bathroom. It’s also great for enhancing your safety while moving around.
The Key Benefits of Radiant Floor Heating
There’s no doubt that putting radiant floor heating in your bathroom requires a large upfront investment. It can be helpful to understand the different benefits it can provide you with so that you can weigh the pros and cons and make your ultimate purchasing decision.
Enhanced Comfort
Probably the most noticeable benefit of radiant floor heating is that it can provide you with a luxury feeling of comfort. Warm floors on those chilly winter mornings can make a world of difference in how you start your day. You’ll no longer have to worry about wearing slippers or socks to stay warm. Even adding radiant floor to the bottom of your shower can further increase your comfort level.
Even Heating
Another major advantage of radiant floor heating over traditional forced-air heating systems is that it provides more even heating throughout the room. Radiant heating emits heat directly from the floor area of your bathroom. This allows the heat to rise up naturally at an even pace across your room, leading to even heating throughout your entire bathroom.
Space-Saving Design
One key benefit of radiant floor heating that simply can’t be overlooked is the fact that it doesn’t require a whole lot of space. Regardless of whether you choose electric cables or hydronic tubing, it all gets run beneath your flooring material. There’s no need for any vents on your bathroom walls or bulky radiators taking up your space. This gives you more flexibility in your renovation design.
Quiet Operation
One very noticeable advantage of radiant heating is that it’s super quiet. You no longer have to listen to the sound of the blower fan for your furnace circulating air throughout your ducting. While hydraulic systems can still make noise at the boiler, electronic systems are virtually silent.
Better Air Quality
If you’re someone who suffers from severe allergies, asthma, or another respiratory condition, you know how important air quality is to your home comfort. Unfortunately, traditional heating systems like furnaces are great at circulating airborne toxins throughout your home. This can increase your flare-ups and undesirable symptoms. The beauty of radiant floor systems is that they don’t use a blower to circulate air. Due to the radiant heating attribute, the systems offer better indoor air quality.
Long Lifespan
Radiant floor heating has a fairly long lifespan compared to other types of heating systems on the market today. A simple electronic radiant floor heating system can last about 20 to 30 years. Hydronic or water-based radiant floor heating systems have tubing that can last anywhere between 30 and 50 years or more.
Are There Any Drawbacks?
As with any type of heating system, there are some drawbacks that you should be aware of when making your ultimate purchasing decision. Radiant floor heating can be costlier to install than a traditional heating system. This has to do with the added cost of specialized cabling or tubing. Its installation is more complex than traditional furnaces, requiring professional installation. Additionally, performing repairs on a radiant floor heating system can be quite extensive due to having to lift up some of the flooring to access the issue.
Will It Raise Your Floor Height?
One of the most common questions homeowners have about installing radiant floor heating in their bathroom is whether it will raise their floor height. The answer is yes, the components for a radiant floor system, both electronic and hydronic systems, will raise the height of your floor. You can expect it to be on average half an inch higher with your new heating system installed.
Is It Safe For Wet Areas?
Another key question we get about radiant floor heating systems, especially those powered by electricity, is whether they’re safe for wet rooms like bathrooms. These systems are completely safe to use in a bathroom as long as they’re installed correctly. This includes proper waterproofing procedures and electrical grounding to ensure the utmost safety.
What Type of Flooring Is Best?
If you’re considering adding radiant floor heating to your bathroom, it’s important to consider the type of flooring material you’ll be using. You’ll want to choose a material that’s great at transferring heat, also referred to as flooring with high thermal conductivity. Some key examples of great flooring to pair with your new radiant floor heating system include tile, stone, porcelain, and concrete.
Can You Get Radiant Heating in Your Shower?
One really fantastic upgrade that a lot of homeowners overlook with radiant floor heating is extending it into their shower space. While this type of heating won’t work with a traditional tub due to how the tub would block heat transfer, it’s great for shower tile flooring.
Expert Radiant Floor Heating Installation Services
Environmental Heating & Air Solutions offers expert radiant floor heating installation services for the Roseville, CA area. We can also assist with all your radiant floor maintenance and repair needs. Simply call our office today to schedule your next service appointment.
