For our dream home, we always mentioned wanting heated floors in the list of things we’d want.
We were dating then, but that’s one thing about heating we both agreed on.
It seemed easy to buy the hydronic heating system from the heating business and get an HVAC repairman to install it. Simple. Or so we thought. We went to the heating dealership to get familiar with the type of heater we wanted, and we did get to know how it worked. Still, the heat and AC product expert recommended that we consider a heat pump or hybrid heating as a backup because we wanted the hydronic mostly for floor warming. The options sounded better than a boiler because I’d had a terrible experience with boiler repair, and my husband was not open to a furnace either. When we included the backup options, the furnace/heater installation cost grew higher for us. Hence, we had to ask the HVAC maintenance and installation expert if there were any ways to make the installation cheaper. That’s how we ended up with the hydronic system that heats the floors in some parts of the house and wall radiators to keep the rest warmer. We’ve not had trouble with heating maintenance so far, but the glamor of it has started to wear off, and I can’t wait to have a change of the system once this one starts to give us repair trouble. The only perk right now is that I don’t have to worry about my kids getting cold while playing on the floor because they are always warm. By the time we intend to make the change, they’ll be grown and easier to keep warm.