Radiant Floor Heating

Radiant heating systems involve supplying heat directly
to the floor, wall panels or in the ceiling of a house.

Types of Radiant Floor Heating
Types of Radiant Floor Installations
Wall & Ceiling Panels

Radiant heating is similar to the effect you feel when you can
feel the warmth of a hot stovetop from across the room.

Radiant heating has a number of advantages:

  • Radiant heat is more efficient than baseboard heating and usually more efficient than forced-air heating because no energy is lost through ducts and can also be advantageous to people with severe allergies because there is no air moving.
  • Hydronic (liquid-based) systems use less electricity and can also be heated with a wide variety of energy sources, such as propane or natural gas, oil-fired boilers, wood-fired boilers, solar water heaters, or any combination of these heat sources.

Radiant Floor Heat

There are three types of radiant floor heat:

  • radiant air floors (air is the heat-carrying medium-but this type of radiant heat is not cost effective in residential applications);
  • electric radiant floors;
  • hot water (hydronic) radiant floors.


All three types can be installed in different manners:

  • Using the thermal mass of a concrete slab floor or lightweight concrete over a wooden subfloor (these are called “wet installations”);
  • Or, the installer “sandwiches” the radiant floor tubing between two layers of plywood or attaches the tubing under the finished floor or subfloor (“dry installations”).

Types of Radiant Floor Heat

Air-Heated Radiant Floors

Although this type of radiant heat can be combined with solar air heating systems in a residential application, these systems obviously suffer from the drawback of only being available in the daytime, when heating loads are generally lower.

Electric Radiant Floors

Electric radiant floors are typically installed with electric cables built into the floor. Systems that feature mats of electrically conductive plastic are also available, and are mounted onto the subfloor below a floor covering such as tile.