do your homewark and go to our website. primary heat using 4 watts per foot.

cables will tell you on there own site there using 15 watts per ft

www.warmfloor.com

don't worry about us. maybe you should listen to yourself. this custumer wants to use wood flooring over hydronic radiant heat in canada. maybe somone should warn him before they try to warm him.  and another thing how can anyone be making claims before they see a house plan with r values.

of course it is being turned into heat, at a constant rate of 15 watts regardless of outside variables... such as the room reaching temperature. Warmfloor is self regulating which allows it to maintain the rooms temperature at a much lower consumption rate. It takes less gas to keep a car at 65 mph than it does to get it to 65 mph. Warmfloor takes its foot off the gas, wire products dont. thats the difference.

Posted By NRT.Rob on 16 Feb 2010 09:18 AM
Uh, wrong thread. there is no 'customer' in this thread or particular system in discussion. Just you hawking your stuff with half truths and sleight of hand and apparently a total misunderstanding of how radiant floor heating works. Also, you're responding to the wrong poster. I never gave the one you're talking about any specific product recommendations. Just conversion math for different energy sources. But hey, you're batting zero so far, feel free to keep swinging until you get a hit. How about I toss you a meatball: electric radiant is hard to mess up. Discuss.

There are a lot of altogether crappy products out there, but STEP Warmfloor isn't really one of them.

Without getting into all the reasons people try radiant floor heat, what can it be done with?  Electric resistance heaters and hydronic systems.  All of them have their pros and cons, and those are dificult to explain to folks that don't understand the principles at work.

I've heard horror stories of leaky pipes in hydronic systems and I've heard horror stories about electrical systems burning out after a few years.  I've seen decades old hydronic systems humming along like they were new, but I've yet to see a decades old electric radiant floor - because cables tend to burn out or get a corroded connection in the floor, or get broken during install and never do wind up working at all - and this stuff's only been out since the early 1980's.

But this product is not a cable.  It's a positive temperature coefficient resistor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermistor) - which is about temperature precision in a limited temperature range.  The element can be punctured with fasteners if needed.  An installer's helper can trip over it or drop his hammer on it and it won't need to be replaced before the tile goes down.  It can't (barring negligence on the part of an installer) overheat and burn a floor.  It can't burn itself out.

For the comapny that knows what they're doing, this can be purchased and installed at a cost that is competitive to a hydronic system, it can be run off a Crestron home control system, and the element works at 24V - the same voltage that comes out of (most) solar panels - making it fit well with the off-grid crowd.

Yes their standard residential element runs at 7.8w/linear foot of element, with a maximum installed watt density in the neighborhood of 5.5 watts/square foot, and maxes out at about 82 degrees F.  And for the place that can be heated with that watt density , it's the best electric option (imho), and for the place that needs more, they make stronger elements.  This company that manufactures this product heats their building with this product.  I'm sure they'd welcome questions from anyone wondering what their electric bill looks like in this relatively cold St. Louis winter and what their total installed watt density is or whatever anyone wants to know.

On the other hand, as for their marketing campaign (or whatever Jersey thinks he's accomplishing) it seems their reps are stuck on the Billy Maysish "step right up, come one, come all" bs pitch looking for easy sales to wealthy housewives and not so knowledgable contractors instead of making a name for themselves as reputable, knowledgable salespersons of a decent product.