Wicked Sundays

If you’re considering Nu heat mats, you may already know that heated floors can mean electric floor warming systems or hydronic heat systems. Nuheat mats are a type of electric in floor heating system and this has some advantages over a hyronic system:

1) Electric radiant floor heating mats can mean less maintenance. Hydronic floor heat systems require mechanical heaters or boilers to heat the water and also require pumps to move the water underneath your floors. It is possible that the pumps and mechanical heaters will both need maintenance after some time. As well, the pipes of a hydronic system may eventually leak. This would require maintenance – possibly expensive maintenance. Leaking pipes not only require maintenance, but may also cause water damage to your floors and property. In contrast, electric floor warming systems do not have these problems. Once they’re correctly installed, they require virtually no maintenance. Quality electric floor heating systems such as suntouch also come with very generous warranties that ensure full support and help in the very rare case that something should happen to your system. Hydronic systems tend to have shorter warranties, simply because the systems can be more problematic.

2) Electric flooring means more even heat. In a hydronic floor heat system, the hot water closer to the beginning of the pipe is generally warmer than the water near the end of a pipe, which means slight variances in your floor heat. Electric floor warming systems, on the other hand, tend to distribute far more even heat.

Energy efficiency. With a hydronic floor heat system, the water must first be heated, and then must be slowly pumped through the pipes underneath your floor. This all requires every – before heat is even available to warm you! With an electric floor warning system, however, electricity simply warms the radiant mats underneath your floor. All the power and energy is being used to produce heat and is not being used to heat water.

4) Simpler installation. With hydronic systems, floors often need to be raised in order to make room for the water system and pipes. As well, pumps, valves, pipes, and water heaters must all be installed for this type of system. In contrast, an in floor heating system from radiant Nuheat is so simple that even a homeowner can do it themselves. There’s no need to make dramatic changes in your home – as long as you can access floor joists you can generally install electric floor heat mats. As well, there are only mats to install with electric floor heat, not a complex system of mechanical parts.