Money is tight these days, so it would make sense to try and save money any way possible. One good way to save money is through making the best use of energy in your house. In other words, maximizing your heating and cooling systems are a great way to save money on your home energy bills. One great way in particular is to install radiant heating systems in your home.
What is the value of a radiant heating system? EnergySavers has a great article discussing the different ways in which a radiant system can help you save money. For one, it uses less electricity than a baseboard heating system which will save money on that bill. It also is more efficient because there are multitude of energy sources that can be used in order to heat your room. It is possible to use natural gas, or even solar power for hydronic systems.
To understand how radiant heating can save you money, it would be a good idea to understand a little bit about how radiant heating works. A common radiant heating method sends heat directly to a floor or wall. The heat is then radiated from that surface in your room. For example, the heat that is generated from the floor of the room is radiated through the room without using any type of duct system, causing it to be more efficient than a baseboard heating system. The heat is spread through the room easier and you can keep the thermostat at a lower temperature.
Another method of radiation heat is through the use of water. The process used here is hot water pumped through your boiler through tubes and up to the floor in a given room. The hot air then radiates through the room and would heat the room just like a typical radiant system would. This is advantageous to the homeowner because it is quite cheap and bypasses the use of electricity almost entirely. This is a huge advantage of typical radiant heating systems.
Radiant systems are great ways to save money on heating if you live in an older house, or a house that has a concrete slab floor. This is because the concrete will do a better job of trapping the heat naturally and will allow you to keep your heating needs to a minimum.
If you are looking to control the temperature for each room, consider using wall or ceiling panels. They don’t generate as much heat as floor panels, but they allow you to control the temperature in a single room. This would be a great way to allow you to have it warmer in your child’s room, or in a room that you and a roommate spend the most time in, while not having to heat the entire house.
Radiant systems are a great way to save money on heating. You have many options as to what energy source you use to heat the panels, and you have greater control over what rooms get heated and when. You can bypass electric heating altogether if you want while using your home as a natural trapper of that heat. That will allow you to save a lot of money on your heating bills come this winter.