As more and more building owners are placing increased emphasis on sustainable and responsible building practices, engineers, architects and designers are looking to hydronic radiant heating and cooling to provide superior comfort and greater energy efficiency. In a hydronic radiant system, warm or cool water circulates through a series of PEX piping loops embedded in the floor.
The warmed or cooled surface radiates comfort to objects and occupants in the space. Radiant systems can reduce overall building energy usage in a number of different ways. For one, because the heat-transfer capacity of water is 3,500 times greater than that of air, a radiant system that uses a circulator to move water (in lieu of a fan to move air) can achieve the same heat transfer using significantly less energy.
Also, because of the way the human body exchanges heat with its surrounding environment, a radiant system can achieve comparable levels of comfort at lower room temperatures for heating and higher room temperatures for cooling.
In fact, studies have shown total energy savings for typical office buildings on the order of 17 to 53 percent.
To learn more about hydronic radiant heating and cooling systems, visit www.uponorpro.com.