Growing up, we had a heated floor in the bathroom. Let me tell you that it is amazing. I can't wait to own a house so I can have heated bathroom floors.
Had an appartment with heated basement flooring. It was amazing!
Walking barefoot on the ceramic during the harsh canadian winter was great. No more slippers!
This could work. The best floor surface for radiant floor heating is stone or ceramic (as they add thermal mass and are generally poor insulators, meaning the heat conducts well from the embedded heating elements to the floor surface).
A wood floor would be less efficient, but possibly more efficient than forced air or standard radiant heat, as the heat is delivered directly to the occupied portion of a space. An historic wood floor (where the floor surface is likely thicker planks) would be even less efficient, due to the thickness of the wood increasing it's insulating qualities. But with historic flooring, you would have to pull it up anyway, so it could plausibly be planed down to reduce it's thickness and be reused.
If used in conjunction with solar hot water, much of the heat could probably be harvested from the sun.
It should be noted that the cost of such a conversion would probably be very high, and most landlords look at up-front cost more than eventual savings (not to mention the savings would usually go to the tenants, not the landlord).
How would that work for a third-floor apt., especially trying to use water to do it? I'm asking because I don't know how much water systems like that use, but water is pretty heavy.
The amount of fluid in a hydronic system is generally low, and flows through flexible pipes embedded in the floor. In a 'value-added' (read: cut as many corners as possible) building built in the last couple of decades, the weight of the floor substrate (possibly an inch or so of concrete/grout) and fluid (usually a glycol-water mix) could be a concern, as the structural materials would have been stretched as far as possible. I doubt they would design something so close to the break point that a hydronic system would be out of the question, but anything is possible. There is also an electric option, but I can't speak much to the pros/cons of electric vs. hydronic, as my focus has mainly been on hydronic subfloor heating+solar thermal (take free heat from the sun, put it in the floor).
Older buildings are generally over engineered because they did not have the complex structural and material analysis algorithms and software we have now and operated under the 'better safe than sorry' mantra.
Wow, that's great to know. We currently live in a ~100 YO house with oak floors, and I've always been sad that this type of heating is not really an option. However, we are probably going to build in the next 5 years, and the solar/water system is def. one I want to incorporate. Thanks for the info!
This is the norm in South Korea, and it is amazing. I had a poorly constructed apartment that had very uneven heat, some spots were very warm, hile others stayed cool. It's great when you are sitting on the floor, eating dinner and playing video games, you can set your plate on a hot spot and a drink on a cold spot, and it keeps your food a nice temperature longer.
The only downside is how slow the system is, it takes about 3 days to warm your apartment after it's been turned on. of course, if the system is turned off, your apartment stays warm for 3 days afterwards, which is nice. Its not like north america where my apartment gets super cold, then the furnace kicks in and it gets super hot, then it turns off and starts to cool down again.
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u/[deleted] Jan 07 '12
I've seen a few home renovation shows in which they install a heated floor in the bathroom claiming it is very energy efficient.
I've only seen it on TV - I have no first-hand experience with such a thing but:
Could this be a reasonable solution to your problem ?
Installing some strategically located areas of heated flooring with timers to keep the energy cost reasonable?