All posts by Jenny Hallam

Radiant Floor Heating – Plain, Simple and Luxurious

Floor Heating Systems are Easier than You Think

When most of us think about our home heating system, we think of a complicated maze of air ducts, furnaces and vents. The installation of a central heating system is well beyond the expertise of the average homeowner, but what about a radiant floor heating system?

Installing radiant heat for heated bathroom floor

Advances in radiant heat technology have come a long way since radiant under floor heating was first introduced, and electric floor heating systems are environmentally friendly because they run more efficiently than the average furnace and run independent of harmful fossil fuels.

On top of all that, radiant heat provides unparalleled comfort and even-heating. Forced air cannot compete with the steady and efficient warmth put forth by radiant heated floors. A common misconception about radiant heating is that it can only go beneath hard surfaces such as tile. While heated tile floors are indeed great options for radiant heat, they are not the only option available.

Heated bathroom floor

Warmzone has several electric radiant floor heating solutions for virtually any type of flooring. You can even do most of the floor heating installation yourself. If you want to start small with a bathroom, electric radiant heating systems make it easy to heat small areas. Each room has its own thermostat, so you can heat only where you want, without having to waste in other parts of your home. Because radiant floor heating is so plain and simple, the plain and simple fact is that you’ll want radiant heat for your entire home!

Brighten Up the Dark of Winter with Home Heating Upgrades

Add Electric Panel Heaters and Save Money Too

Believe it or not, adding energy-efficient electric heating can save you money. Sounds like music to your ears about now doesn’t it? The economy downturn has given us all pause to look at our finances. Sure on the surface adding more gadgets, devices, or instruments to your home may sound initially expensive. Adding anything to your home heating may seem beyond your financial reach. This isn’t true if you go about it wisely.

ECO-heater wall panel heater

Did you know that by simply supplementing your home heating with energy-efficient electric heating devices you can save money on your monthly heating bill? It’s true. Some areas of your home heating may not be working as optimally as you’d desire. Cold bathrooms and basements are prime suspects. Consider placing an electric wall-mounted heater in those areas and the safe and energy-efficient heating that results will help cut your heating expenses. Your current system won’t have to work quite as hard to heat those tough to reach spaces, because your electric heater is pulling some of the weight. It is possible to brighten up the dark and dreary winter by augmenting your home heating with wall, baseboard, and pedestal heaters.

Save Yourself a Fall Off Your Roof; Install Heated Gutters

Heated Gutters Keep Ice and Debris Clear So You Don’t Have Too

This is a true story. When I was a girl I looked out my bedroom window one winter afternoon and found my dad lying next to an oak tree in our front yard in direct line of our roof. I opened my window to inquire about his health (mental and physical). After a moment, he groaned that he had fallen off our roof. Needless to say, the roof was not a heated roof.

Upon further investigation I saw that the gutters just outside my window had perfect hand grips pulled down where my dad had tried to catch himself as he slipped off the two story roof. Having a roof de-icing system would have prevented his fall since he would never have had to be up there in the first place. The poor guy was trying to clear the gutters and roof from ice and snow when, like so many people do, he slipped and went right off to the ground below. Luckily his injuries were fairly minor, but the soreness of his body reminded him he didn’t need to do that trip to the roof again mid-winter. Installing gutter trace heat cables keeps your roof and gutters clear of slippery ice and snow and allows your feet to remain firmly planted on the ground, where they belong.

This afternoon I heard of another friend’s father falling off a ladder while attempting to gain access to his roof for the same purpose. Also a non-heated roof and also a slippery trap waiting to lure one into its clutches. His injuries were more serious than my dad’s. He sustained a head fracture as well as a broken back. Having a heated roof is not only convenient it’s also much, much safer. I’m sure we all have horror stories of being on the roof, either personally or someone close to us. Be safe, make the smart homeowner’s choice and put a roof deicing system in place and enjoy the safety of a heated roof and gutter trace system.

Heated Sidewalks is a Smart Business Choice

Cut Snow Removal Labor Costs and Increase Pedestrian Safety with Radiant Heat

Most of us may associate a radiant snow melting system with a heated driveway. Why not apply the same smart technology that comes in a snowmelt system, to a sidewalk? Pedestrian safety is key when running a business or taking care of public buildings such as schools or libraries. Using a radiant snow melting system underneath a sidewalk would be a significant perk to any existing or new project where pedestrian traffic is being taken into account. Having walks clear of snow at all times would increase traffic and safety.

Radiant snow melting systems are relatively affordable and save you in the long run when it comes to snow removal cost and headaches. The fully automated snow melting systems are simple to maintain because they require no human intervention. They do however come with a manual override should you ever need to melt a snow drift that collected on your driveway or ice that formed in some shade.

Radiant snow melting systems utilize radiant heat beneath the concrete or asphalt to help keep walks clear of snow and ice. This makes walking much safer for pedestrians in cold climates. Each snow melting system can be customized to meet your specific project needs and they fit in uniquely shaped areas as well. Using a snow melting system anywhere there are pedestrians is a sure way to keep everyone safe and dry

The Snow. The Heated Driveway. The Melting.

Radiant Heated Driveways Make Snow Removal So Simple

Every day it snows millions of us curse its accumulation. We point our fist to the sky, shaking it with fury and scream WHY? ENOUGH ALREADY! MAKE IT STOP!!! It’s not that we don’t enjoy the beauty of snow or the extremely fun winter sports that it allows, it’s just that, well, we’re sick to death of shoveling, snow plowing, slipping, sliding, falling, and wishing it would just melt on its own. The oversimplification of snow removal is possible. First you get the snow, then the heated driveway , and then oh heavenly day, the melting. Once a radiant heated driveway is installed the hard work is over.

Heated driveway and parking entrance

It does sound simple. Maybe a little too simple, but the beauty of it is that it’s real and exists. A heated driveway takes the once burdensome snow and makes it pretty again. You can sit back and watch it fall without a single curse word uttered or fist shaking. A radiant heated driveway does all the work for you.

These fully automated systems activate when temperatures reach a certain set point and precipitation is detected. There’s no labor involved. The systems also feature manual override capability in case you want to turn on the heated driveway to melt a snow drift or if some ice somehow formed in the shade. All in all, these heated driveway systems couldn’t be easier or more reliable

Are you Ready for a Heat Wave in Winter?

Radiant Heated Floors Mean You Enjoy Heat Year Round

About this time of year, we all start getting twitchy about the cold. The charm of white snowy fields twinkling in the afternoon sun, or snowmen in our neighbor’s yards is starting to wear thin. Sunshine and sand start to seem like a valid prescription from your physician. Sigh. Most of us still have a few months more to endure winter’s icy kiss. If you are like me and crave a heat wave in the middle of winter, read on. Radiant heated floors provide steady, comforting, soothing warmth all year long. It’s true, you can have a mini-heat wave in the privacy of your own home.

Heated floors once seemed like a concept reserved for the days of flying cars and honeymoons on the moon. Thanks to many advances in radiant heat and the common and practical uses of this efficient type of heating, homes are cropping up all over the place with radiant heated floors. Smiling people are waking up everyday to their private heat wave, dressed in nothing but a robe. Socks or slippers need not apply in these homes. Bare toes and skin to floor contact are all the rage. Stepping onto a ComfortTile radiant heated floor just feels good. Having a heated floor may not sound like a substitute to a week in a tropical location, but if you are lucky enough to get somewhere the birds are chirping and the waves are lapping the beach, then coming home won’t seem so bad. After all, you have heated floors now. Can’t you just see yourself smiling about that fact?

Heated Driveway – Your Boss’s Best Friend

You’re Late for a Very Important Date and Snow is to Blame
Do you spend more time making up excuses as to why you are late than you actually do in being on time to your appointments, dates, yoga class, and work? We all have those lists in our head of excuses to our boss or our kid’s soccer coach about why we are late yet again. It’s never easy having to use these excuses. Your number one wintertime excuse of shoveling a foot of snow off your driveway could be a thing of the past however. You can eliminate snow shoveling from your “oh geez, am I late again? So sorry…” routine.

Heated tire tracks in residential concrete heated driveway

Installing a heated driveway is now easier than ever. It’s also a cost-effective, proven home re-sell enhancing feature. Equipping a home with a technologically sound and savvy snow melting system has become a popular and affordable way to beat the snow. Look at the homes in your own neighborhood. Many of them probably already enjoy the benefits of a snow melting system. If they do, they are never late for a date or any other function because of back breaking snow removal. Their driveways remain clear and clean of sticking snow all winter.

Driveway heating has come a long way. It’s no longer something seen exclusively in the affluent neighborhoods or touted by the rich and famous. Heated driveways are now something your sister’s best friend just installed, your son’s basketball coach, your co-workers, next door neighbor or even your kid brother who you were sure was never going to own a home let alone increase its value with something as smart as a snow melting system. Get out of hot water with your boss, pull out of your driveway on-time and relaxed as you calmly wave at your less fortunate neighbors sweating and shoveling out from last night’s whopper of a snow storm. Install a snow melting system right now and start enjoying the benefits of a stress-free, time-saving heated driveway

Integrate Radiant Heat Seamlessly Throughout Your Home

Radiant Heated Floors May be Retrofitted Beneath Existing Floors

If you feel like it’s too late to jump on the radiant heating trend wagon, have no fear, the wagon is willing to slow down or even stop to allow you to leap for joy onto its willing heated floor. So many homes are being built with radiant floor heating in mind, and there are a number of different systems and ways to install radiant floor heating in your home during construction. That’s great for those building new homes but what about the rest of us living in our existing homes? Those of us who are fully aware that we would love radiant floor heating but also aware that we don’t want to build a new home to achieve the bliss of warm tiled floors.

Radiant heated floors are still within reach. You can retrofit your existing floor with a radiant floor heating system. If you can access the floor joists from below, tile, hardwood and carpet floors can all be fitted with radiant heat. If you are feeling supremely ambitious you can consider having heated floors throughout your entire home. Radiant floor heating provides soothing and efficient heat in whatever area is has been retrofitted too. Radiant heated floors are for everybody nowadays. If you wish you could be a part of this warming trend, call a professional today and find out how to design the proper floor heating system for your home and how to make the installation as pain free as possible.

Be on Time with the Help of a Heated Driveway

You’re Late for a Very Important Date and Snow is to Blame

Do you spend more time making up excuses as to why you are late than you actually do in being on time to your appointments, dates, yoga class, and work? We all have those lists in our head of excuses to our boss or our kid’s soccer coach about why we are late yet again. It’s never easy having to use these excuses. Your number one wintertime excuse of shoveling a foot of snow off your driveway could be a thing of the past however. You can eliminate snow shoveling from your “oh geez, am I late again? So sorry…” routine.

Heated driveway in Denver

Installing a heated driveway is now easier than ever. It’s also a cost-effective, proven home re-sell enhancing feature. Equipping a home with a technologically sound and savvy snow melting system has become a popular and affordable way to beat the snow. Look at the homes in your own neighborhood. Many of them probably already enjoy the benefits of a snow melting system. If they do, they are never late for a date or any other function because of back breaking snow removal. Their driveways remain clear and clean of sticking snow all winter.

Driveway heating has come a long way. It’s no longer something seen exclusively in the affluent neighborhoods or touted by the rich and famous. Heated driveways are now something your sister’s best friend just installed, your son’s basketball coach, your co-workers, next door neighbor or even your kid brother who you were sure was never going to own a home let alone increase its value with something as smart as a snow melting system. Get out of hot water with your boss, pull out of your driveway on-time and relaxed as you calmly wave at your less fortunate neighbors sweating and shoveling out from last night’s whopper of a snow storm. Install a snow melting system right now and start enjoying the benefits of a stress-free, time-saving heated driveway.

Radiant Floor Heating is the Best Way to Ensure Consistent Heat

Radiant Heat Spreads Warmth from Your Toes to Your Nose

Radiant floor heating is a term being thrown about during most new construction projects. More and more homeowners (even business owners) are considering and then purchasing a radiant heated flooring system. Radiant heat is famous for its even and pleasing heat emitting from the heat cables beneath a floor. Radiant heat spreads warmth starting at your piggy toes, then on to each of its neighbors and then fills the room all the way up to your nose and beyond. A normal size room will feel the effects within moments of the radiant floor heating system kicking on. Radiant heated floors are especially effective in basements that normally suffer from colder drafts and settling cold air. Radiant heat emanates from the ground up and settles on each object it reaches, ensuring consistent and reliable heat.

Radiant floor heating is the best way to ensure consistent heat as well as a more energy efficient approach to your home heating needs. Radiant heat spreads much like a coffee mug keeps your coffee warm in the morning. It radiates the warmth outward from the heat source, warming room from the floor up. In this case it could be as small a space as a guest bathroom that never warms up to an entire floor and hallway that you wish to heat. Heating experts are standing by to assist you in the layout and design of your radiant floor heating. You’ll be assured of getting what you need and the tips to make it work efficiently and smartly.