Radiant heat in ceiling?

[RaggedHunter]

I am in the process of buying a new home, the house has electric radiant heat in the ceiling. I am familiar with radiant heat in the floors, but not electric radiant in the ceiling. I have heard horror stories about electric bills from people using electric base board heating, but I have read that electric radiant is much more cost effective, some articles are even stating it's more cost effective than central air, not sure what to believe. I'm hoping if any of you have owned a home with electric radiant in the ceiling, maybe you wouldn't mind sharing your experiences and shedding some light on me good, bad, or otherwise.

 

[timmymac24]

one story or two story? I have it in the floor of my Morton building it's an incredible option that was added by the original owner.

 

[Gwchem]

I think you'll find that most houses have it in the floor for a reason.

 

[KurtR]

Unless it is two story that would be kinda useless as all the heat goes up into the attic.

 

[Titan]

This isn't adding up. Electric radiant in a whole home would require some serious wiring. Then to install it above the heating area as well as a location without any mass (like a slab)? I'm so confused and also so interested. Ha!

edit: I do some some sites advertising ceiling radiant heat. Never seen it or even heard anyone using such a system.

 

[SonnyDay]

I had this in an apartment in college... luckily we were on the second floor and so never turned it on since we got free floor heat from the unit below. As others have noted, the thermodynamics are all wrong...

My mom's house up in northern CO had electric ceiling heat when she moved in, but we disconnected it and put in hydronic floor heat instead. Electric is highly efficient from an energy conversion standpoint, but often very expensive to actually run when you are buying power from a utility.

If the house is multi-story, consider leaving the ceiling heat in the lower level to heat the upper level, and then putting something else in down below.

Hope that helps!

 

[Dos Perros]

There is about a zero chance electric (resistive) heat is more efficient than something that consumes fossil fuels or has a refrigeration cycle (heat pump).

Edited to add: I meant efficient as in cost efficient, $ in / heat out.

 

[DerkPerk]

So are you talking the whole ceiling is heated or just a couple radiant tiles?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Outdoor Writer]

I have no idea what sort of ceiling heat is being discussed, but when I lived in Colorado in the mid-70s, I worked for a contractor during the winter building expensive custom houses. In one, we used sheetrock that had heating coils embedded about 6 inches apart lengthwise. Each sheet had a connection fitting on each end so they could be wired together. If I recall the sheets came in various sizes, i e. full 4x8, 1/2 & 1/4. Small voids were filled with regular rock. Obviously, the panels are well marked for nail/screws to avoid the heating coils. They are also hooked to a separate thermostat in each room.

In another very expensive home we built for a cardiologist from Lubbock, we installed this huge antique wood-fired steam boiler like a fireplace at one end of a big basement room. Then we ran 1" pipes in the floor with the concrete poured over them. It worked really well.

 

[go_deep]

We have radiant ceiling heat in our office, got to run fans all the time to push the heat down.

 

[Q child]

It's been a few years since I took Thermodynamics, but my recollection is that heat rises.

 

[dutch_henry]

Lived in a house like this in Oregon. Was told by some long-time area residents that it was popular back when electricity was silly cheap. Some builders used it because it cheap to install, no unsightly baseboards, and hey, it's costing pennies to run.

In our house at least, it was an obsolete throwback that drained your wallet, heated your head (if you were standing on your tiptoes), and left your feet freezing.

 

[JoshOR]

Same as above, I’m in Oregon, house built in ‘55, all ceiling heat. Got hot wires sandwiched in sheet rock, no bueno. Top of your head gets toasty when you crank it up so that’s nice.. each room was individually controlled, basically just heated the main rooms, still expensive. We installed a heat pump 5 yrs ago or so with a/c ( which we didn’t have before). And still much cheaper overall.

 

[Customweld]

It was pretty common on houses that Boise Cascade built in the ‘70s. My moms house has what a couple of guys above described: Heat coils in the ceiling Sheetrock. It’s a bizarre type of heat. The air doesn’t necessarily feel warm, but the furniture and other things get warm. Completely ineffective and super expensive power bill wise.

 

[Oilfieldmiller]

My first house in WV had a small anthracite coal stove in basement which was primary heat and it had radiant heat in the ceiling on 1st and only floor. Wife loved the radiant heat as it heated the beds/carpet/furniture/etc. But it did jack up power bill quite a bit so we only used it during really cold spells or cool spells when coal stove wasn’t running.

Biggest thing I learned from it is to have someone who really knows what there doing inspect it for hotspots or damage as most aren’t installed properly. They can use an infrared camera to inspect all the wire if and give a thumbs up/down on the safety aspect.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Centralcoastca]

I was looking at buying a house once that had that, my brother who is in the heating business told me to walk away unless I was planning on putting in a new central system. He said it was a short lived fad in the 70s and where we live on the coast in ca. it’s not the worst thing since we usually only need to really heat for a couple months a year and sporadically at that. he said still the electric bill is terrible since it’s not efficient at all and if you live somewhere that depends on more heating it’d be way worse. The system in the house I was looking at was basically wires running through the plaster ceiling so if it fails you’re replacing it with a new heating system. I’m not interested in any electric heating myself, maybe if it had a good wood stove too to supplement or back up in case of an outage.

 

[MT_Wyatt]

Radiant ceiling is nothing to worry about - it typically isn’t all that powerful, meaning you don’t get much for capacity. 2x4 panel is ~0.5kW or so normally. Baseboard is going to get more out.

Radiant is different than convective (baseboard). Baseboard works by heating air, and then it rises and mixes in the space. Radiant heats by heating objects in the space. The space itself can be cooler, because your perceived comfort is higher when your accepting heat radiantly - think about standing in the sun on a cold day. Those panels work the same way.

And as far as the efficiency - electric is pretty dang good and converting to heat, like has been said. But as far as a heat pump comparison, refrigerant boils at a really low temperature and the ability to leverage that makes it quite efficient, more so than electric resistance. Even when cold, refrigerant can pull energy from air outside air, and the r cycle can release that inside (reverse of normal ac) to give you heat.

As far as heating the whole home with elec radiant. I’d agree with above poster, not ideal at all, and I’d expect to do an upgrade at some point. Radiant is great but those panels are just nice for spot heating little places or specific locations, not an entire system. Depending on where you live, the system options for “what’s best” might differ. And if you’re upgrading, I would highly encourage you to look at getting some ventilation incorporated into your system.

Never thought any of that would even come up on Rokslide ha ha - got any questions feel free to PM me.

 

[trazerr]

Back in 2019 before we bought our current house we walked through a place with radiant ceiling heat. This was also in Oregon like a few above were. It was odd having a warm head, but cooler lower body as we walked around the place. Realtor and I were a bit confused at first.

First thing that I thought of was how in the heck am I going to add canless lighting to every room with wires running through the ceiling everywhere?!? Place didn’t have AC either and adding that along with typical heating would have cost us big money.

 

[TL44]

I rented an old duplex that had radiant heat in the ceilings when I was building our house in WA. I was always weirded out by the concept, but I was warm all winter. Very stagnant airflow vs. any forced air system. It didn't cost as much to heat as I expected, but it was a pretty small space. I'd be worried about maintaining it long term.

 

[hodgeman]

As others stated, this was a short lived product in the early 1970s.

It works, but the economics of it are pretty tough to swallow. We were disconnecting it and installing heat pumps for customers in the 1980s and 1990s...even at the low TVA electric rates prevalent back then.