Heat the floor, then the furniture, then the air
It’s cold here. The wind is biting, the chill in the air is significant. Unfortunately it’s not really officially winter yet and there isn’t even any snow on the ground. How are we supposed to deal with sub zero temperatures when I don’t feel like I can even handle the 30 degree weather we have now?
One of my least favorite things about winter is how cold it is when you get up in the morning and stepping on a cold floor getting out of bed or getting out of the shower. Then you walk around the house and the warmth you previously had fades away because your house is never quite warm enough. Well, unless you have unlimited funding for heating your house then it’s not a problem. But we’re pretty frugal so we have the thermostat set lower.
I heard there was a way to prevent some of these chill problems by putting in the radiant floor heating system that uses radiant heat. If you’re house is already built its kind of a pain because you have to rip up your floors but if you’re remodeling anyway or building new then definitely consider one of these. The pipes and tubes under the floor are flushed with water, or sometimes they are just electrical, and they heat the floor, which in turns heats everything touching the floor by radiant heat. Pretty cool really (oops, I meant hot!). With a warm floor and warmer furniture, the furnace doesn’t have to work so hard to keep up with heating the air. This in turn drops your energy bill and you’re able to enjoy a warm house without suffering through cold feet.
A friend of ours even went about installing radiant floor heating in his garage to keep his vehicles warmer, and a few of our local businesses put it in under their new sidewalks so the snow would melt faster. It’s a pretty awesome system and should be considered by those who are looking for more efficient ways of heating.