Baseboard vs. Radiant Heat

[KStarfish82]

OK...

What are your thoughts and experiences with baseboard or radiant heat?

We are putting in a new heating system and we need opinions on these two systems.


TIA!

 

[GreatDaneMom]

By "radiant heat" do you mean the coils in the ceiling? If so, that's what my house originally had, with baseboard heat in the bathrooms. The biggest advantage was we had a thermostat in every room so we could really control our use of electricity.

Disadvantages to radiant ceiling heat were: my head was always warm but my feet were cold since heat rises , replacing bad coils is a major tear-out of your ceiling, and some of our neighbors had problems with cracking in their ceiling over the years (we didn't have that although the house is over 30 years old now.)

The only disdvantage I found with the bathroom baseboard heaters was that it was hard to warm up the entire room evenly. It was nice and warm next to those baseboard heaters, though.

About 3 years ago we replaced our radiant ceiling heat with a forced air unit in the garage that is piped through the central air conditioning ducts so we aren't using the radiant or baseboards now.

 

[JimFitz]

We have both. Radiant is a much better heat IMHO

 

[teacups]

I really dont like baseboard. Our whole house was baseboard when we bought it... what a PITA. You cant get a couch too close, or curtains, or wires or... that reason alone was enough to yank it.

 

[TaraPA]

They put radiant heat in ceilings?? I didn't know that! We have radiant heat under our tile floors - LOVE IT. Our biggest regret building this house was that we didn't get radiant heat under all of the floors....

We've had electric baseboard heat in another house & hated it, very expensive to run. I'm not sure radiant heat is any cheaper, but it seems to be. It was an older home though, so I'm sure they have come up with some more efficient baseboards than we had.

 

[momrek06]

We built our home in MA in 2005 and went with hydro-air heating system. We selected no baseboards.


Hydro-Air Heating Systems: The Best of All Worlds
The hydro-air heating system combines the benefits of both forced hot air and circulating hot water home heating systems. Moist air is less drying on skin and hair.

With a boiler as its heat source, the hydro-air system can produce domestic hot water. Like a forced hot air system, both warm and cool air can be delivered to each room via air ductwork. It remains the most versatile and luxurious indoor comfort system available today.

Hydro-air features include:
Circulating warm air
Air conditioning
Air cleaning
Fresh air recovery ventilation
Humidification
Domestic hot water (lots of it!)
Baseboard radiators
Multi-zoned fan coils for heating & cooling
Radiant heating for floors, towel racks and sun rooms
Driveway snow melting
Unit heaters for garages & auxiliary buildings
Flexible installations for large houses
Versatility to meet all comfort needs

 

[redrosesix]

Disadvantages to radiant ceiling heat were: my head was always warm but my feet were cold since heat rises , .

We had that in an apartment once. Remember, it gets a lot colder here than it does in Virginia, and the apartment was in a 200 year old brick and stone building with 100 year old windows. The difference in body temperature was extreme!

But I have been in places that have radiant heat under the bathroom floors - it is so awesome to step out of the bath or shower onto warm tiles.

 

[KStarfish82]

Bump

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I live in southeast Texas now, so my opinion of heating systems should probably just be ignored.

Radiant heating in the ceiling sounds insane to me. If that is your option, walk away. You should heat from the floor. That's basic thermodynamics.

My parents, in Estes Park, have radiant heat in many of their floors. I find it very comfortable. They said that the one drawback is that it takes longer to warm up and longer to cool down. That isn't a problem for them as it tends to stay cold for long periods there and their house is very well insulated, so it doesn't suffer from wild temperature swings. We built a house in Oklahoma a few years ago and opted not to do radiant heating because of the frequent wild temperature swings.

 

[TheZue]

Baseboards can be a real problem if you have a small child that likes to stand on them, it rips them right off the wall. My son is now on his THIRD in his room and he got one in our room too. I did the same thing in my room as a child too. That and I'm always paranoid that he's going to push his toys over there in the middle of the night and start a fire...I just don't think they mix well with kids.

 

[Kathi OD]

Our old house originally had radiant heat in the floors which was changed over to baseboard. I'll agree that it is great to feel the warmth on your feet that radiant heat provides. However, our house was on a concrete slab and somehow there was a leak in the pipes in the floor. The leak didn't show where the pipe was actually leaking and it was a real mess to find and fix it.

Also if your rooms will be carpeted, radiant heat will not be as efficient as the heat will have to move, not only through the floors, but also through the carpet, leaving some of the warmth behind.

After the leak, we opted to convert to baseboard heat. If a toy gets pushed under the opening, it will NOT cause a fire. It's true that your furniture should be pulled away from the wall a bit so that the heat can circulate away from the baseboards, but we never found that to be an issue, since we're talking a couple of inches, not feet.

Personally, I think it depends on if the piping will be in concrete and also if you are going to carpet your rooms. If it won't be in concrete and there will be no carpets, then go for the radiant heat.

 

[My2Cinderellas]

I learn something new every day. Forced air gas furnace/air conditioner is standard here. I had baseboard heaters in one apartment just out of college and HATED it. LOATHED it, and will never buy a house with baseboard heating. It's not common around here, so not really a problem unless we would move across the country.

I had no idea baseboard heating was common in certain parts of hte country and people would actually choose this. Of course, I've never heard of radiant heating in the ceilings either. My dream house will have radiant heating under the kitchen/bathroom floors, in addition to geothermal heating/cooling.

 

[arminnie]

By "radiant heat" do you mean the coils in the ceiling? If so, that's what my house originally had, with baseboard heat in the bathrooms. The biggest advantage was we had a thermostat in every room so we could really control our use of electricity.

Disadvantages to radiant ceiling heat were: my head was always warm but my feet were cold since heat rises , replacing bad coils is a major tear-out of your ceiling, and some of our neighbors had problems with cracking in their ceiling over the years (we didn't have that although the house is over 30 years old now.)

The only disdvantage I found with the bathroom baseboard heaters was that it was hard to warm up the entire room evenly. It was nice and warm next to those baseboard heaters, though.

About 3 years ago we replaced our radiant ceiling heat with a forced air unit in the garage that is piped through the central air conditioning ducts so we aren't using the radiant or baseboards now.

I had radiant heat in the ceilings when I lived in California. Fortunately you don't need a lot of heat there. I'd never heard of them anyplace else. It was very expensive to run them too.

I was really hesitant to buy a place with ceiling heat (SO stupid) - but I had a great location on the water with water views from 3 sides so I put up with it.