Building, Doing an Addition or New Garage? Consider Radiant Heat!

There are times when it makes very good sense to consider radiant heating for your home building or renovation project. Radiant heat technology has come a long way, making it a viable option for heating an entire home. Because it’s SO energy efficient, it has finally grabbed the attention of builders and homeowners alike. There is a lot of growing interest in greater sustainability in home building. With how much money radiant heating can save the average homeowner in heating costs – it’s definitely time to take a serious look at radiant heat as an option.

When you have a blank slate – building new or adding a new addition to your house, or when doing a gut-renovation – radiant heat may be the perfect solution! It will give you the opportunity to choose how a space can look and feel. These are the perfect times to consider radiant heat and the many benefits it has to offer.

There are five most typical times to stop and take a serious look at how a radiant heating system could improve your design and your comfort:

1 – New Construction

During the initial planning and budgeting phase, you will be determining major systems for your new home. When you are building new, you have all the options at your disposal when it comes to selecting your heating systems. Be sure you don’t leave radiant heat application off the list! There is no better time to install radiant heat then when you are building something from scratch.

While radiant heat works very well for any room, consider any areas you will likely be walking barefoot such as your bathrooms, kitchen and hallways. There are radiant heat products designed especially for new home construction. These products include the subfloor layer, saving on both labor and material costs overall.

2 – Gut Renovation

If you are planning a major renovation of an area of your home or your entire house, again, radiant heat is well worth considering. If you are ripping out flooring, it’s the time to lay down radiant heat tubes to offer your remodeled spaces even heating. There are radiant heat products designed for remodeling projects. These products reduce floor height variations and are designed for installation within the confines of an existing structure.

With a renovation, you will need to have or be planning to install a forced water, boiler heating system. Make sure your existing boiler can accommodate the hydronic tubes necessary to channel the radiant heat throughout the installed areas.

3 – Bathroom Addition or Renovation

Definitely one of the favored spaces in a home to add radiant heat is in the bathroom. Why wouldn’t you want to get out of the shower in winter to a nice, warmed towel and warm floor to put your feet on?! If you are remodeling your bathroom, or even just replacing the flooring, consider installing radiant heat. You will pay a little more for the new floor, but the improved comfort, resale value, and energy efficiency (meaning savings!) is well worth it.

Radiant heating is also popular in bathrooms because they aren’t usually very large square footage areas, making it an options for those on a budget. If you’lll already have your floors removed for your renovation, you’ll save on the labor cost having your flooring or plumbing contractor also install radiant heating at the same time. Go ahead – splurge a little!

4 – New Addition

If you have a boiler heating system or are upgrading to a new forced water system, consider radiant heating for all or parts of your new addition. It can be successfully combined with other hot water heating methods like radiators or registers you may have in your older structure. Simply use radiant for the new space. Like new construction, you are dealing with building from scratch so the circumstances to install radiant heat are ideal. There’s no flooring in the way, and floor heights can be accommodated easily.

5 – New Garage

radiant Heat, Building, Doing an Addition or New Garage? Consider Radiant Heat! — Garage floor radiant heating system.

Never considered installing radiant heat in your garage? Why not?! Radiant floor heating is a great option for a garage. It will keep the floor dry and warm the air throughout the garage, preventing tools and stored items from the dangers of mold and mildew. Think: melting snow falling off your car in winter and how it makes the whole garage damp. Your floor will be warm when you are crawling around underneath your car if you are a gearhead, and any projects you do in your garage will be much more comfortable when not standing on a cold cement floor. You can even use your garage space as a workout room or workshop year-round! Crank some tunes and stay warm and dry all year.

Did you know radiant heat is also fantastic under a driveway or walkways? Learn more about Snowmelt Driveways.

**It’s not whether to install – it’s more like, when.**

Radiant heat systems retain heat better, and heat more thoroughly than traditional heating systems. Because the very nature of radiant is heating the floor, the heat remains down where you are living and moving for far greater comfort and far less wasted energy. Despite the cost of installation, the supreme energy efficiency will add up to real savings in the long run. Expect your monthly heating bills to go down immediately, and they will remain down, recouping your investment in upgrading to radiant heat.