The Heart of Your Home

May 04, 2010

Hello and welcome to FloorHeat Help, the blog devoted to radiant heating systems. 

In the previous installment, we introduced you to The FloorHeat Company and gave you a brief introduction to radiant heat.  Properly designed and executed radiant heating systems offer a level of comfort and energy savings that forced air systems simply can't match. At The FloorHeat Company, we're dedicated to delivering  Radiant Warmth The Right Way.

So, once you're sold on the idea of radiant heat, you sit down at the computer and do some research. You type in your search terms, hit enter, and --- OMG, there's a gizillion pages of results.  With great resolve, you begin the  task of winnowing the wheat from the chaff.  However, in very short order, you find yourself more bewildered than informed.  Folks, there's a lot of good, competent dealers out there who will sell you a top notch system; however, there's also a lot of snake oil salesmen.  The dilemma faced by the consumer is how to know the difference. It's  caveat emptor at it's worse.    Naturally, we'd like to see you buy your system from The FloorHeat Company.  However, even if you don't, we'd still like to see you make a good, informed choice when purchasing a radiant heating system.  After all, bad word of mouth hurts our whole industry. Beginning with this installment of FloorHeat Help, entitled "The Heart of Your Home,"  we'll begin a somewhat in depth look at the how and why of Radiant Warmth The Right Way.

If you've ever taken a high school biology or health class, you already have a basic understanding of how a radiant heating system works.   Think about about how the human circulatory system works. As the following diagram illustrates, a radiant heating system isn't so very different.

(CLICK ON THE DIAGRAM TO ENLARGE)

In the human circulatory system, the heart pumps deoxygenated blood to the lungs via the pulmonary artery.  Reoxygenated blood then flows back to the heart via the pulmonary vein.  From there, the blood enters the aorta and is distributed to arteries and capillaries, where it gives up its oxygen.  Upon leaving the capillaries, the deoxygenated blood enters a series of veins, which merge at the vena cava.  The vena cava then carries the blood to the heart, where it's pumped to the lungs to be reoxygenated, and the cycle begins again. 

In a radiant heating system, a circulator (the heart) causes cool water to flow through the primary loop return (the pulmonary artery) to a boiler or other heat source (the lungs).  The heated water then flows through the primary loop supply to the supply manifold (the aorta) and is distributed to the  supply piping (arteries) for the heat emitters (capillaries).  As the water passes through the heat emitters (for example, a radiant floor), it gives up its heat and then enters the return piping system (veins), which carries the now cool water to the return manifold (the vena cava).  From the return manifold, the cool water flows to the primary loop return and back to the boiler to be reheated.   The heated water then leaves the boiler via the primary loop supply, and the cycle begins again.

In a nutshell, just as the human circulatory system is about oxygenating blood and distributing it to the various parts of the body, a radiant heating system is about heating water and distributing it to various the various parts of a building.

So, that's the basics.  Next time, we'll delve deeper into the anatomy of a radiant heating system by disecting the individual components and looking at how they work together to deliver Radiant Warmth The Right Way.

That's it for this installment of FloorHeat Help.  Please don't hesitate to let me know if there's a radiant heat related topic you like us to discuss. So long for now, and stay tuned!

God Bless,

Jim Szalla
The FloorHeat Company
3120 Spanish Oak Drive
Lansing, MI 48911
Ph:  517.272.4441
Toll Free:  888-265-5455
Fax:   517.708-2304
jszalla@floorheatcompany.com

http://www.floorheatcompany.com/