There are at least two kinds of heating systems to heat your home. We are going to look at the difference between the radiant and the forced air system.
For a radiant system your home will have a boiler and a series of pipes that are in the walls or sub floor of your home. The boiler will heat up and shoot water through the pipes where the heat will radiate out of them and into your home. Thermal energy is used in this process versus the air carrying the heat through your home. There are a few advantages to the radiant heat. The first advantage is that your rooms will be heated more evenly than they would be with forced air. The radiant heat tends to stay closer to the floor instead of the forced air that rises and then sinks when it is cool. You will be saving more energy with a radiant system versus most forced air systems because the forced air system can lose up to 30% in the duct work due to leaks and cracks. One big disadvantage to the radiant system is if you want one in an already constructed home then you need to tear the floors up in each room you need heat in.
The forced air system is much more common in homes. You will recognize these as furnaces that have duct work attached to them to deliver your warm air. The furnace will heat the air and then the air will be forced through the duct work and into the rooms of your home. Hence why they call it a forced air system. The advantage of the forced air system is that most homes built in the last 50 years or so have duct work so that you can have a furnace heat your home. Installing a forced air system is cheaper than installing a furnace because you won’t have to tear your home apart to do so. The other disadvantages of the forced air system are the heat loss and sometimes uneven heating.
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