Under tile heating – the best way to warm up a room.
Under tile heating or under floor heating refers to radiant heating methods that are installed between the floor and the tiles as apposed to more traditional methods used to warm up a room such as wall-mounted radiators.
An under floor heating system is usually hydronic or electric, is installed in between the firm base of the house flooring and the tiles laid onto the floor.
Most typically such under floor heating system will be within the cementing between a concrete or wooden base and a tiled floor.
Under floor heating uses a radiant heat design to gently heat the room from the bottom up and using under tile heating has two main advantages over tradition methods used to warm up a room.
Firstly, traditional systems heat from the top down and have a tendency to over-heat your head, leading to stuffiness and heat is concentrated into relatively small areas, such as around the radiator). The air then rises up the wall, along the ceiling into the centre of the room. When it reaches the centre of the room, it cools slightly, and then descends towards the floor.
This is known as vertical heat stratification and, as a result, to get warmer feet, you may need to overheat your head and as the feet naturally act as our body's 'thermostat' warm feet generally means we feel comfortable.
However, under floor heating and under tile heating can warm up the whole floor area resulting in the opposite vertical heat stratification - warm feet and a cool head. The type of heating generated by this type of floor heating suits our body's natural requirements. We tend to emit a high proportion of our body's heat through our head, so it is warm anyway whilst our feet are at the extremities of our body, so need a bit more heat
The second most important advantage of under floor heating or under tile heating is the radiant heat it generates. This is the most comfortable form of heat and floor heating spreads the heat over the entire floor area resulting in about half the heat being emitted as low temperature radiant heat.
This gentle source of warmth reduces the heat loss from our bodies without overheating the surrounding air - gently and evenly warming us up in the same way as the sun on a perfect summer's day.
To find out the perfect way to warm up your home using floor heating, just call The Natural Tile Studio.