Radiant heating systems involve supplying heat directly to the floor or to panels in the wall or ceiling of a house. The systems depend largely on radiant heat transfer: the delivery of heat directly from the hot surface to the people and objects in the room via the radiation of heat, which is also called infrared radiation. Radiant heating is the effect you feel when you can feel the warmth of a hot stovetop element from across the room. When radiant heating is located in the floor, it is often called radiant floor heating or simply floor heating.
How Radiant Heating Works
Use of radiant heating is spreading rapidly across the world because it’s clean, quiet, efficient, dependable, and invisible.
Although it can be used to heat walls or ceilings, Wirsbo radiant tubing is usually installed beneath the surface of your floor. Your heating contractor can install tubing in poured concrete sub-floors, structural concrete slabs, the underside of subfloors, or into panels above these floors.
Radiant heating systems circulate warm water through continuous loops of Wirsbo tubing. The tubing system transfers the heat into the floor and upward into virtually any surface including carpeting, hardwood, parquet, quarry and ceramic tile, vinyl flooring, or concrete. The floor surface becomes radiant with warmth. You feel warm all over as heat gently radiates to your body surface like sunshine. It’s the ultimate in draft-free heating comfort.
Why Radiant Heating is better
Wirsbo radiant heating does not heat air and blow it around. It directly heats people and objects in the room for maximum comfort at significantly lower cost!
Better comfort: Radiant heating warms you evenly from head to toe. No cold feet. No blowers, drafts or sense of chilliness in different parts of the room.
Lower fuel costs: You can save 30% or more compared to hot air systems which lose heat in ductwork and which allow heated air to rise to the ceiling where it’s not needed.
Better heat distribution than hot air systems. With a forced-air system, heat is uneven, much of it collects at the ceiling. The radiant system gently heats body surfaces and objects without wastefully heating air that rises to the ceiling. You’ll be comfortable at a lower thermostat setting while reducing your heating costs.
Room by room comfort: Unlike hot air systems that are difficult to zone, a Wirsbo radiant heating system can be zoned any way you like! This means that you only heat the areas you want to heat, to whatever temperature you wish.
We use Uponor Wirsbo Systems