Radiant Cooling - Cold Enough For The 21st Century?
There’s no doubt of the immense pleasures of radiant heat. While the market is still small, it’s obvious that homeowners in the “nesting nineties” are becoming acutely aware of the cost efficiency and sensuous comforts supplied by these systems. Within the past two years, the demand for radiant heating has increased by 200 percent. This figure is sure to rise as consumers understand that the foundation of radiant technology rests on human comfort itself. Now the question is whether or not radiant cooling will join its counterpart in the hearts and feet of its supporters.
What is radiant cooling? It works on the same principals as radiant heating — the primary principal being comfort. The Radiant Panel Association defines a truly comfortable environment as one “designed to draw heat away from our bodies at precisely the correct rate.” When we lose heat too fast, we’re cold; too slow, we’re hot. We are always producing heat. Even at sleep we generate an average of 400 btu’s per hour. About half of that heat is lost to cooler objects in the room. When we stand we produce about 500 btu’s per hour and running results in 1,800. With radiant heating we lose less heat because the objects in the room are the same temperature as our bodies — therefore we’re comfortable. Radiant cooling allows our bodies to lose more heat, much in the same way we do when we walk down the frozen food section in a grocery store. By providing a cool surface, all other surfaces, including our bodies, will give up heat to the panel.