RADIANT HEAT

Radiant heating is not only the most efficient form of hydronic heating on the market today, but also happens to be the most comfortable.

The fastest growing sector in the heating industry, millions of Americans are now enjoying the unique benefits that radiant offers. Matt has been installing these systems since the Late 1980s when radiant enjoyed a rebirth. Much like the major comeback of Solar Heating (which we also do!) today, the radiant industry has made drastic improvements - in leaps-and-bounds - since its first heyday in the 1940s Levittown. Today, we use PEX (cross-linked-polyethylene), a very tough and thick plastic tubing that has been used in Europe since the 1970s. From the Mega-Mansions of Long Island’s Gold Coast to The Levittown capes, Matt laid tens-of-thousands of feet of tubing under the watchful eye of the Old-Timers…many of whom had worked on the Levitt radiant systems. They brought with them the wealth of experience and breadth of knowledge that they had absorbed over the decades.

With the unparalleled exposure and saliency that shows like This Old House brought to Radiant heating, Matt Saw the potential and really pushed it as a heating option, often doing jobs at material cost just so that his clients could feel the warmth and enthusiasm that he did. When a client was gutting a bathroom or kitchen or pouring a basement floor, and they asked what heating options they had, Matt would tell them: “…..NONE! You have only one….RADIANT.” Those who followed his advice never regretted it.

HOW IT WORKS

Very simply put, radiant heating warms a room by heating the objects in that room, be it the floors, walls, ceilings, furniture, and ultimately, the human body. Small diameter tubing, hidden away in your floor, walls, ceilings or even countertops, circulates warm water silently and comfortably. The Human body loses heat to colder objects in a room. The Law of Physics dictates that “heat always goes to cold.”

Radiant heating is the Wall of Warmth that will keep your body from losing heat and feeling cold. One of the biggest selling points of radiant is that it is “invisible”……no ugly radiators to look at or stub your toe on. Folks also remark how even and consistent radiant heating feels as opposed to forced hot air, baseboard and even steam heating.

APPLICATIONS

Wet Install:
When we say wet install we mean that the tubing is set in a medium of concrete, mud-tile application, or gypcrete. This is the most common And least expensive application. Once the tubing is tied to the reinforcement mesh, the medium encases the tubing creating a thermal mass that is ideal for holding and transferring heat in to a space long after the boiler shuts down. The joy of seeing your family relaxing on the radiant floor on hoary winter’s night is not just a brochure photo-op or gimmick. Although Matt installed an antique steam system in most of his house, all the tile floors and basement are radiantly-heated. His family enjoys the health and comfort benefits that only a warm, cozy floor can deliver.

Dry System:
Dry systems lack the thermal mass of a concrete or mud slab, but still remain out of sight, buried under beautiful, hardwood floors, or in your walls or ceilings. Dry systems respond faster and don’t hold the heat as long as a wet system, but still enable one to enjoy the feel and comfort of radiant. Many times, we have installed radiant in a staple up application from the floor below a finished space when it was considered “too late” to have radiant. Dry installs are ideal when floor height is an issue. Many, uninformed plumbers, builders and heating contractors will tell you that radiant heating under a wood floor “won’t work” or will cause the wood to warp or split. Here at Triple Crown we have been installing radiant in wood-floor applications for over 12 years with no problems whatever. The key to these installs lies in the wood going down ONLY when it has a very low percentage of moisture in it. We have special instruments to make certain this is the case. Moving forward, humidity must be controlled in the building especially in homes that are built over a high water table or on the water; This is often accomplished with a standard central air conditioning system.

Anybody can throw down tubing and connect it up to a boiler. General contractors, homeowners and unqualified plumbers see the PEX tubing (much like PVC) as a green light to go in to the plumbing and radiant business. We see hundreds of such poor, faulty, and dangerous installations each year that we are called in to correct. Matt has a saying: “you only get ONE chance to do radiant the right way.”

In other words, once the tile or concrete is down, there are no do-over’s, unless you want to chop up the new floor. Tubing lengths and patterns DO really matter and if not respected will result in cold spots on the floor and rooms that will not heat on the coldest days. At Triple Crown, we are not afraid to do the math.

OLD WIVE’S TALES

We still hear them till this day: “radiant can’t heat a big room….what if you get a leak in the floor…..you can’t use it with a wood floor…

The Levitt houses had problems…its so much more expensive than regular heating……my cousin Tony said it don’t work, et al.

At Triple Crown, we are a skeptical lot. When a new product comes on the market, we confer with our industry compatriots across the country, conduct our own independent research, and are very slow and cautious to install the product. This business is problematic enough, so we try to keep our headaches to a minimum. Therefore, we would never install radiant tubing or any other product that would cause us undue grief. Levitt used copper tubing buried directly in to the concrete slab and held down by steel horseshoe nails. Both accelerated corrosion in the copper and caused some systems to leak. Actually, even today, there are many original Levitt homes with original copper radiant systems working away with no problems……almost 60 years later! In the 1980s there was rubber-type tubing that was used that also had some problems although a class action lawsuit proved that the fault lay in the poor installation practices and not the product.

PEX, cross-linked-polyethylene, has been in constant use for over 30 years with NO failure! It is actually approved for domestic water piping and residential fire sprinklers now as well. Last year, we installed almost 50,000 feet of PEX. Needless to say….we are confident in its This product.

COST

Radiant DOES cost more to install, but is worth every cent invested in it. At Triple Crown, we offer several options from the competitive to the deluxe installations to suit your budget. In fact, in some cases, we even install electric radiant where applicable. We sometimes do radiant in phases to help ease the financial burden: for example, we will install the tubing (at cost) when the floor goes down and connect to the boiler down the line when the folks have the money to complete the job. We often hear clients who regret that they didn’t do it, but have NEVER heard anyone regret that they did do radiant.

PHOTO GALLERY OF RADIANT HEAT