Heated floors are used more frequently in places like bathrooms or bedroom places where you want your feet to be warm. But it can be used in any room in your house and even out site. I have seen it in garages (to help melt the snow off of your car) or even in cold area they heat their sidewalks and parking lots so they never have to shovel.

There are benefits to heated floors other than keeping your feet warm after you get out of the shower. Compared to the usual forced air heating such as central air, radiant floor heating throughout your house can help you save on your monthly heating expenses. With floor heating you are able to heat only the rooms you are using with timers and to your desired temperature with giving you the option to make each room a different temperature. Also air quantity is much better than your typical forced air system because you’re not recalculating dust and spores. It’s more cost effective if the floor has a significant thermal mass such as a concrete slab.

There are two main types of radiant floor heating :

The most energy efficient and most popular of the three is the hydronic radiant floor system. This system pumps heated water through a boiler through heated tubes laid in a pattern within the floor. In this system you are able to control the flow of heated water with zoning values or pumps with a thermostat.

• Electric radiant floors are made with electric cables or even electrically conductive plastic within a mat. These mats are mounted to the subfloor and below the floor covering. Electricity can be costly so to save on energy you should choose a floor covering with a significant about of mass to store the heat such as concrete or heavy tiles. You can also “charge” your floors during off-peak hours (9 p.m. to 6 a.m.) and if your thermal mass is enough it will keep your home comfortable for around 8 hours. Electric floor heating is a great option for additions onto homes where it might just be too pricy to extend your current system into the addition.

There are so many products out there and contractors that offer this service. I chose one product for each type of floor heating but just so you know there may be better prices out there, so do your research before making your final decision.

Warmzone.com has a hydronic system that uses the PEX radiant tubing which is installed inside a gypsum concrete or as they call it “Gypcrete”. They also have a system where the PEX radiant tubing is laid within pre-cut wood panels which make the product more inexpensive and lighter but work as well without the mass. The InfloorBoard which they use in their system is a green product, also light weight. These systems can range anywhere from a little below $3,000 to above $4,000 and this all depends on the square footage.

Warmzone also offers a comfort tile mat which is an electric heated mat with adhesive backing for easy installation. It has built in ground-fault protection as well as a dual conductor heating cable which allows for only one cold lead connection. They are also very thin at only a thickness of 3mm. These are bought by the area and 100 square feet is a little over $800. You can put any flooring on top of the product.

Installation – ? will vary with your location , complexity or square footage – expect to pay anything from 1,000 for a small bathroom to 5,000 for a more complex bigger area.

Each system has it benefits but the hydronic system by far is the best thing you can get for your money. Even though it’s more money to put up front you save a lot more in energy costs.