Find Out If Hydronic Heating Systems Are Best For You
Whether you are shopping for a heating system for your new home or if you need to replace your heating system in an existing home, you should be sure to consider installing a hydronic heating system. What is a hydronic floor heating system? A hydronic radiant heating system depends on heating water which in turn heats your home. The heat from the water is transferred to the room by use of a copper or aluminum tube that disperses the heat into the air by its surface area. Sometimes rather than a radiator, a continuous tube is used that circulates the hot water through several rooms in a closed circuit.
The benefits of a hydronic heating system
The primary benefit of hydronic heating systems is that you can use a hydronic heating system to heat through the floor. This is done by either mounting the radiating tubes to the underside of the floor, or by embedding the radiant tubing in under the floor in the concrete slab. By keeping the floors warm, you can keep your feet warm all winter.
The drawbacks of a hydronic heating system
The primary reason that keeps people from installing a hydronic floor heating system is the cost. In fact, this type of heating was fairly wide spread in new housing built in the 1950s but the cost is what eventually drove people away. Besides, homeowners had a lot of issues with broken pipes. Today, the pipes and tubes are made from modern materials that don’t crack or break. In fact, they are a little flexible to make sure that they with stand any vibration or impact.
The cost however is still higher than traditional heating systems, but the cost gap is decreasing. Furthermore, the number of people choosing a hydronic floor heating system is on the rise, especially in the northeast. Efficiency People compare the effectiveness of a hydronic radiant heating system with that of systems that transmit heat using air. The results in most cases are ambiguous. Since air systems utilize ducts and furnaces that have different properties than hydronic systems, they have different types of loss and weaknesses. Evidence seems to suggest, however, that a home with a hydronic radiant heating system may be more energy efficient and comfortable during the winter than a system that blows air.
Final considerations
While the even heat of hydronic heating systems is highly desirable (especially those that heat underneath the floor), some people do not choose that type of system because they will still have to install air ducts and a compressor unit to run the air-conditioning. With heat pumps, for example, the same infrastructure is used to distribute heating and cooling throughout the house.
While this makes the most of investment in materials, the heat isn’t quite effective or constant from room to room and the floors might be colder. Still the quality of the heat produced by a hydronic heating system combined with the lower maintenance cost should be enough to warrant considering the use of a hydronic system.
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