While forced-air heating does a decent job warding off the Michigan winter chill, it rarely provides the kind of cozy, even heating most of us prefer. For truly comfortable warmth, a radiant heating system is often a better choice.
Radiant heating is based on electric heating coils or water-filled tubing under your floors or, less commonly, in your walls. Heat from the coils or tubes radiates out like heat from the sun, directly warming people and things. This is unlike a forced-air system, which just blows warm air into your rooms. Advantages of a radiant heating system include:
- Improved comfort — Cold feet can make your whole body feel cold. Because radiant floor heating warms your floors and feet, it keeps you feeling warmer overall. If you usually keep your thermostat at 72 degrees, you may find radiant heating lets you lower the thermostat to 68 degrees with no decrease in comfort.
- Silent operation — Radiant heating is completely silent. There’s no annoying noise from the furnace kicking on, the whirring blower fan or air whooshing through the ductwork.
- No more drafts — A radiant heating system transfers heat without moving the air. The system won’t cause uncomfortable drafts or stir up dust or pollen that can aggravate allergies.
- Easy zoning — Zoned heating lets you independently control the temperatures in different parts of your home. Because radiant systems don’t use ductwork, they’re easier to zone than forced-air systems. All you’ll need are programmable thermostats.
- Simple installation — Installing radiant heating is easiest in a new construction, but it’s not difficult in an existing construction. The coils or tubes are simply installed under your floors or within your walls. This eliminates the work and expense related to installing ductwork and registers.
If you’re considering upgrading your heating system or switching to a different type of heating, an energy evaluation should be your first step. For expert guidance on choosing a new heating system or to schedule an energy evaluation, contact us at Aladdin Heating & Cooling. For more than 65 years, we’ve been providing dependable HVAC care throughout southeast Michigan including Detroit, Dearborn, Ferndale, Rochester, and surrounding cities.
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about radiant heating systems and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
Aladdin Heating services Novi, Farmington, Farmington Hills, Southfield, Oak Park, Ferndale, Beverly Hills, Berkley, Royal Oak, Birmingham, Bloomfield Twp., Bloomfield Hills, West Bloomfield, Madison Heights, Clawson, Sterling Heights, Warren, Troy, St. Clair Shores, Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Woods, Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe Park, Detroit, Utica, Shelby Twp., Rochester, Rochester Hills, Auburn Hills, Lake Orion, Oxford, and Clarkston.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock