The advantages of electric radiant heating when compared to hydronic are really three fold.

Installation ‘after the fact’ can be easier with electric. Due to the nature of hydronic heat and the piping required to be embedded under heated floors, electric under floor radiant heating can be much less complicated to fit in a house after the main heating system is in place, for example in a refurbished room (who wouldn’t want a warm bathroom or bedroom floor) or for an extension.

Instant heat, less waste. When you switch on electrically heated floors the heat is more quickly felt, due to the fact that the water in a hydronic system is heated as it passes around the system, which takes time, then it heats the floor, which then heats the room. Electric systems are much faster to warm up. They also cool faster, which can mean less wasted heat and energy, therefore reduced heating bills.

Better for small rooms, as above with installation in extensions or refurbished rooms, electric floor heating can be more cost effective in smaller spaces, not only due to the nature of the heating, but because the cost of an electric system is steady, but hydronic heating systems value increases with the size of the area you need to heat. Meaning for larger spaces and whole house heating systems, hydronic often offers better value.

In short, electric radiant heating offers low start up cost, fast heat and great levels of control. Hyrdonic heat on the other hand offers greater value in larger installations and a more stable heat supply over time, and more flexibility with regards of energy supply.

Hydronic heat pumps are relatively uncommon at the time of writing, but have the potential to be one of the most efficient types of electrical central heating. They take advantage of the refrigeration cycle to extract heat from the earth or even water into and around a building.

Closed loop hydronic heat pump systems are probably the most widely recognised and take heat from the earth using large loops of pipe buried in the ground. These loops move heat from the earth to your home using water in the pipes to pump the warmth from the soil around the loop in your home, and then the cooled water returns to the pipes in the earth.

Hydronic heat pump systems that extract heat from water, for example from a lake, are less common and referred to as “open loop” systems as the system is open to the atmosphere.

Hydronic heat pumps are, perhaps unsurprisingly, best suited to well insulated, airtight homes. This is due to the heat they provide being of a relatively low temperature, meaning they simply cannot compensate for the heat loss of more inefficient homes. Put simply hydronic heat pumps are not currently capable of producing the high temperatures most radiators and convection heater require. In contrast, other heating methods, in particular radiant floors, are ideally suited for use with hydronic heat pumps.

We’ll be exploring various forms of hydronic heat systems in the near future.

In the majority of hydronic heat systems, cold water is heated in a boiler which can be powered by a number of fuel sources, then pushed through piping to panel radiators positioned in each room via a pump.

The heat is transferred from these radiators to the air in each room, this is referred to as radiant heating.

An alternative form of hydronic radiant heating are floor coil systems. In which the hot water is pumped through pipes that are set in a concrete slab during the floor’s construction. The heat from the pipes radiates into the surrounding concrete, and subsequently into the room above.

Floor heating provides a comfortable, and well balanced heat, but due to relative complexity and high costs is still not as commonly installed domestically as radiator heating systems.