Can A Water Heater Be Used For Radiant Floor Heat

You really only need a maximum of 120 f for your floor.

Can a water heater be used for radiant floor heat.

Water heaters are good for radiant floor heating because they maintain a low temperature. This is called a dual purpose system. Use a water heater to make radiant floor heat instead of a boiler many people use a water heater instead of a boiler for radiant floor heat because it costs less. For most residential applications you can use the same hot water heater to heat water for the radiant heat system and for domestic drinking water showers cleaning etc use.

Dual purpose systems a dual purpose system relies on only one water heater to supply both the hot water requirements for the home and the warm water needed for the radiant floor heat. Water heaters on the other hand are perfectly happy being fed 55 f supply water and chugging along at 110 f to 140 f perfect for radiant floors and more than adequate for many baseboard and panel radiator applications. We ve been doing this longer than anyone with great success. The author s radiant distribution system consists of a primary loop with a heat exchanger for domestic hot water and secondary loops for each heating zone.

You will need to be aware of the incoming groundwater temperature as cold water will drop the overall water temperature. A hot water heater saves money when used in this way. The system designer may have to increase the size of the radiators to account for the lower water temperature. Every heating unit that radiant floor company recommends and offers is designed rated for space heating.

Water based radiant floor heaters are expensive to connect since they require a water source a boiler and pump unit. Radiant floor company pioneered the use of on demand tank less water heaters for radiant floor heating nearly 20 years ago when many in the heating industry believed that on demand water heaters would never work for radiant heat we disagreed. Water heated by the tankless heater flows directly through the floor tubing while a heat exchanger provides heat for the dhw supply. Also there is very little maintenance which can be done by the homeowner.

Since most conventional boilers are designed to produce super hot water 185 degrees radiant floor company builds what we call split manifolds for multiple zone closed systems that use radiant floor heat in combination with standard baseboard radiators fan coils cast iron radiators or any other hydronic heating device that requires super hot temperatures. In fact an electric hot water tank can be used to heat a house with in floor radiant and they are thousands of dollars cheaper than boilers and if they fail cost very little to replace. However once installed they are exponentially cheaper to operate than electric heaters and as such after the second year recover their initial cost.