Floor Heater Old House

Floor furnaces are often very inefficient especially in homes that don t have good insulation often true for older southern california homes.

Floor heater old house.

Radiant heat is a method of heating the floor by using electrical wiring or heated water with the heat then transferred upward thorough the floor and into the rest of the home. Fortunately dry radiant systems can add heat to your floor while sacrificing only about an inch of height in the room. It s also a highly efficient way to heat a house increasing comfort as it reduces energy costs. A service technician from socal gas came to turn off my old floor heater pilot and inspect my gas appliances for safety.

It s one of the most space effective options for your old house. Loops of white plastic tubing hang suspended like hula hoops in the basement of madeline krauss and paul friedberg s shingle style home the site of this old house tv s newton project. Richard trethewey toh s plumbing and heating expert pulls another length of tubing from a decoiler on the basement floor and feeds it to heating contractor john perry who snakes it along a joist bay over his. The furnaces take up extra space on the ground floor.

The principle is simple. The floor radiates heat to your feet warming you all over. But a radiant heat system has more than just aesthetics going for it. The heat distribution is spotty with areas closer becoming too hot and more distant rooms left too cold.

They produce wonderful heat but they require serpentine runs of plastic tubing water heaters or boilers pumps and manifolds. Radiant floor heating has been around for centuries. Ducted hot air systems appeared in some upscale homes and buildings were warmed with heat generated by huge brick furnaces in the cellar which vented into rooms through floor and baseboard registers usually with decorative rotating vanes to. It s truly invisible he says.

Old house heating improvements the 19th century brought improved heating and ventilating systems. Baseboard heaters are popular in old and new homes alike and here s why. This in depth information from energy govcan help you choose the type of radiant heating that will work best to keep your home toasty warm. Most familiar are hydronic systems that heat your entire house.

That s the appeal of radiant floor heating says this old house plumbing and heating expert richard trethewey who has long been a fan. They re relatively simple to install in retrofit situations and in new construction because there are no bulky ducts to run.