Problems of Floor Furnaces
Floor furnaces have been around for thousands of years. Even the ancient Romans used floor heating to warm their houses. Modern floor furnaces are much safer than the ancient heating systems. However, some problems still exist with floor furnaces. It is important to be aware of these facts before deciding if a floor furnace is right for your home. Does this Spark an idea?
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Features
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A floor furnace is a type of heating system that dispenses heat from beneath a floor into a room. There are three main types of floor furnace systems: radiant heating through the use of electric heated wires, copper or polyurethane pipes filled with hot water installed under the floors and floor furnaces that are warmed through hot air systems. Each of these systems work in conjunction with layers of insulation to provide heat to residential or commercial buildings.
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Cost
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One of the problems with floor furnaces is the cost. In electric heating systems the electric use is extremely high. Air systems have to constantly run to keep the air warm in the room. Water systems can be expensive as well although they are the cheapest form of floor heating systems. The installation of floor furnaces can also be expensive, around $10,000 in most cases, because there are many pipes and equipment pieces that must be installed. Houses must also be very well insulated, which can add to the expense.
Energy
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One problem with floor furnaces is how much energy they require. The heating systems use the temperature of the floor to gauge when to add more heat into a room. A cool floor will result in the unit running almost constantly. Since the units are close to the ground a lot of the heat from the furnace can also be lost into the ground. A study done by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation showed that homes with floor furnaces had a room temperature averaging at 68.7 degrees F while homes with other heating methods averaged 67.6 degrees F. The study showed that the homes with floor furnaces had to work harder to keep nearly the same temperature in a room.
Installation
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If a floor furnace is installed into a home as it is being built it is not that big of a problem. However, for an already built home the addition of a floor furnace heating system can be very troublesome. In some cases the floors have to be pulled up to install the heating systems. A much larger amount of insulation must also be installed with the heating system. Houses in cold climates that want to benefit from the use of a floor furnace should have insulation levels around R-25 in the walls and R-40 in the ceilings.
Safety
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The use of a floor furnace system also has safety problems. Since the heat source is so close to the floor of the house, the danger of fire is increased. The city of Berkeley, California issued a report citing that floor heaters are one of the most dangerous heating systems on the market. 990 people were injured from heating systems in 2002. Houses with small children or pets should seriously consider the safety risks before installing a floor furnace heating system in their home.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit "A warm wish" is Copyrighted by Flickr user: Marco Fedele (Marco Fedele) under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
