Heated Flooring Vs Radiators: Which Is Best?

Heating your home can be a difficult task. If you have a large home, it can be hard to fully heat your space, and if you have a smaller house, you might find it tricky to find heating solutions that don’t take up a lot of room. There are lots of different ways you can warm your home, and you might be considering changing it up from a standard radiator. Heated flooring is becoming a popular method, but you might not be sure if it’s right for you. Keep reading, and we’ll explore the differences between heated flooring and radiators and discover which is best.

What Radiators Are Best?

When you want to heat your home, you want to look at opting for high BTU radiators. BTU is a unit of measurement that shows you how powerful a heating device is. The higher the BTU, the quicker you can warm up a room. A higher BTU radiator can be more energy efficient as it heats up quicker, bringing the room to an optimum temperature much faster. This means you can then turn down the heat or turn it off sooner than if you were using a lower BTU radiator. It will depend on the size of your room too which radiator is best for you, but in general, you want to ensure the one you choose has the capability of heating the room efficiently, and a higher BTU can help you be certain.

Benefits Of Radiators

Generally, radiators can be cheaper to install than underfloor heating, so this can be a reason why people may opt for radiators. Similarly, most people know how radiators work and would prefer to stick to something they already know. Radiators also reach higher temperatures than underfloor heating so you may prefer this if you live in a particularly cold climate. Most houses already have radiators installed too, and they’re available in many different styles and finishes, so their visual appeal is higher than underfloor heating. Even if you’re upgrading your heating, radiators are very easy to have installed and will cause little disruption. Underfloor heating requires the whole floor to be lifted, so this can be difficult to work around.

You might have electric radiators and find that they provide you with an accurate way to control the temperature and allow you to easily set it to an automated program. Some electric radiators even have apps, so you don’t need to be in your home to control the heating. For example, if you’re working at the office and the weather takes a chilly turn, you can simply pop your heating on before you even leave work. This way you’ll come home to a toasty welcome.

What Is Heated Flooring?

Heated flooring is actually underneath the floor of your home and can be hydronic or electric. If you have hydronic underfloor heating, pipes are fitted to allow warm water to flow through them and warm the floor. Electric, on the other hand, installs wires underneath and works alongside your home’s current electricity supply. The warmth generated by this method of heating rises up throughout the room, making it a very efficient type of indoor heating. Underfloor heating can also be installed under any floor type too, and it won’t cause any damage.

Benefits of Heated Flooring

Heated flooring ensures that your home is evenly heated, as the floor covers the whole room. Whereas a radiator will be fixed to one wall and could take slightly longer the fill the room with warmth. Underfloor heating also takes up no space at all, so it’s brilliant if you’re limited on wall space. Even in a larger room, using underfloor heating frees up your walls and gives you total freedom for your choice of décor. Heated flooring tends to be a lower temperature than a radiator, but this is beneficial and energy-efficient as you need less power to heat the room. When using a radiator, the heat has to travel from one side of the room to the other, but with heated flooring, the whole room is heated equally. You can also use a heat pump alongside heated flooring which can make it even more energy efficient. As underfloor heating is more energy-efficient, you may discover that it’s a lot cheaper to run than a radiator too.

Underfloor heating can be a good way to retain your body heat too. During the winter, the floors can become icy cold even with radiators on. However, with underfloor heating, you don’t need to worry about stepping out from a warm shower onto a frosty floor. Instead, you can maintain the heat in your body by keeping your feet extra warm. Underfloor heating also helps to keep humidity at bay. Any moisture that becomes trapped in your house can be a new place for bacteria to call home. People might also forget to dust their radiators often, so when they’re switched on the heat forces all the dust into the air and around the room. Using underfloor heating can eliminate this and possibly help reduce symptoms of allergies too.

Which Is Best?

Choosing which heating solution is best depends entirely on your circumstances. You may find that underfloor heating works perfectly for your smaller home, or you might prefer to use a radiator as their heat output is higher. You might even find that a combination of the two works best for you as well. You don’t even have to use underfloor heating in every room. For example, you could use underfloor heating and a radiator in your living room and bedroom as they’re the most used rooms. And then just have a radiator in the bathroom and kitchen.

It all comes down to how you want to heat your home and how warm you need it to be. Both methods have benefits, and both can be costly, whether it’s the installation fee of heated flooring or the general running of a radiator. Ultimately it depends on you and how you want your home to be heated.