Make the Call for Comfort

If you’ve ever heard the term “hydronic heating” before, you may or may not be confused as to what it means. Is it something you have in your home? Is it an option for what you can use besides your furnace? To put things simple, hydronic heating uses the power of water to heat your home, specifically boiling hot water pumped through a series of pipes, where the heat then radiates into your home. In fact, this technology is not new—it’s been around for ages, and is often found in the form of a radiator.

Hydronic heating is particularly popular in areas where extremely cold weather is common, such as in the mountains or northern regions where temperatures below freezing are a fairly common part of winter. To help you better understand this technology, our blog takes a closer look at what hydronic heating is and what you need to know about it.

An Eco-Friendly Heating Solution

Unlike a gas or oil-burning furnace, which are also common in the area, hydronic heating is far better for the environment. The water that flows through the pipes functions as a sort of “refrigerant” for your home, carrying heat far more efficiently and thus requiring far less fuel to make your home comfortable. The water in these lines is fed into a boiler, where it’s heated and then pumped into the lines. The process is so quiet that hydronic heating can actually warm your home entirely silently.

While you can use an alternative liquid source, water is by far the most common, which also means leaks aren’t harmful to the environment, though they’re certainly not good for your home.

Hydronic heating systems often run through pipes that have been laid into the slab of your home, which means that if this type of heating was not built into your home, there’s a good chance it’s probably too late to add it in. You could in theory run hydronic heating lines, but the cost would be extraordinary. However, modern hydronic technology can be installed in wooden floors as well, running through the joists and structure that compose the floor. Older homes that rely on these wooden structures may be able to outfit themselves with these systems still.

Even Heating

Hydronic heating has another advantage as well: even heating. Because these systems run through the floor beneath you, they can produce an even heat that warms your rooms gradually and simultaneously. A manifold even allows you to heat different zones of your home, allowing you to only heat rooms in your home that you’re using, and even heat smaller areas far more efficiently than you would otherwise.