Your spouse got up in the dead of the night and now those cold toes are invading your personal space with the perseverance of a heat-seeking projectile. Lucky for you, the new house will have radiant floor heating – a sure cure for meetings with cold toes at 2 in the morning or a midwinter chill that reaches your bone marrow.

Under-floor heating has been employed since the Roman Empire when it was in its prime in communal buildings and the villas of the well-to-do. Hot air was circulated beneath tile or brick, offering a radiant heat – energy that transferred heat through the flooring and on to cooler objects like Roman recumbant chairs, statues, marble-topped desks and cold centurions.

With the coming of flexible PEX pipe to the United States in the 80’s, its use has skyrocketed as new products have been developed for the construction industry – among those have been hydro systems to provide radiant floor heating. Unlike forced-air furnaces, modern-day hydro floor arrangements utilising PEX plumbing products allow more uniform warmth to a room, are less drying, more economic and a whole lot quieter than aging furnaces or metal steam pipes.

PEX tubing is constructed of cross-linked polyethylene, which gives these space-age pipes strength, chemical resistance, superior mobility, a cost-efficient installment profile and larger temperature range. This polyethylene piping can be exposed to water as high as 200 degrees Fahrenheit in heating schemes.

There are various methods of putting in radiant floor heating. Some use electric line voltage schemes, but easy-to-use PEX hosing products have made hydronic under-floor heating popular with both home builders and house owners. Because the hosing is so resilient, its rolls can be employed in a sustained length, eliminating the need for multiple junctions and fittings.

Some radiant floor heating schemes utilize oxygen-barrier PEX radiant hosing applied in gypsum concrete. Others incorporate low-mass underlayment – wood panels with recessed niches for flexible piping.

Each remodeling or new-construction project is best suited by one method or another, so look into your hydronic floor heating choices fully. Do your research!