Can Underfloor Heating be a Room’s Primary Heat Source?

You’ve decided to install an electric radiant heating system under your bathroom floor. You’re finally going to be able to step out of the shower and enter the bliss of comfortably warm tile. However, while you’re in the process of installing the underfloor heating system, you wonder if you could do away with your existing heating system. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could heat the room exclusively with in-floor heat? Most likely, you can! 

But before you start figuring out how to dispose of a radiator, you’ll want to calculate your room’s heat loss. WarmlyYours Radiant Heating provides a free Heat Loss Calculator that allows you to enter some information about your room and instantly receive a report that details whether or not radiant floor heat can be your primary heat source and how much it would cost to operate.

Heat Loss Suspects

If too much heat escapes from your home, a floor-heating system would be a better supplementary heating option instead of a primary heating source. A few things will play a major role in determining exactly how much heat your room loses. First, if your room includes any exterior doors and/or windows, it is susceptible to heat loss. According to a Washington Post article, air leaks through gaps around doors and windows are responsible for as much as 21 percent of your home’s heat loss. The extent to which your room is sealed will depend on how much heat is able to escape.

A fireplace is another typical offender. Even if the damper is closed, air often escapes out of the chimney. Approximately 14 percent of your home’s heat loss comes from fireplaces, the Washington Post article states.

Calculating Your Heat Loss

WarmlyYours’s Heat Loss Calculator will ask how well your room is sealed, how many fireplaces it has, and more in order to determine how much heat is being lost. As a result, you’ll find out if radiant floor heat can be your primary heat source!

For example, take a 150-square-foot room located in the Midwest with an average sealing factor. The room is located above a heated room and the ceilings in the room are 9 feet. According to WarmlyYours’s Heat Loss Calculator, a floor-heating system can be the primary heat source for this room. It also notes that it would cost about $141.77 to operate the system during the coldest month of the year. However, if the room has a fireplace and a poor sealing factor, it is only suggested to use radiant floor heat as a supplementary heat source.

To find out if radiant heat can be your room’s primary heat source, check out WarmlyYours’s Heat Loss Calculator for yourself!