Radiant heating systems typically use pipes or
tubes to distribute heated fluids throughout the house. Heat stored within the fluid escapes to warm
its surroundings, hence the name ‘radiant heat’. The efficiency of the radiant heat system
depends on this final transfer of heat to the desired location. Tubing alone is not efficient at transferring
the heat between two surfaces because of its cylindrical geometry. Only the tangent (tip) of the tubing is able
to touch a flat surrounding surface such as a subfloor or drywall. Additionally, tubing installed horizontally
will sag between clips where it will not touch another surface at all. This system would otherwise rely on surrounding
air to transfer the heat from tubing to subfloor by convective heating, which
is significantly less effective than direct contact. This is why radiant heat transfer plates are
essential to a radiant floor heating system.
What if your system only had tubes installed with clips originally? The
good news is you can retroactively add the plates over tubing to optimize the
system with little cost. Radiant heat
transfer plates and tubing can be installed above subflooring in a track style
‘sandwich’ installation or used below the subfloor. If no floor access is available or loosing
headspace is not ideal, radiant heat can be installed in walls or within
ceilings too.
Radiant heat transfer plates are made with heat
conductive materials and are shaped with a central groove to hold the
tube. The best plates I have used are
ones that fully surround the tube in an ‘omega’ shaped design. They snap into place over tubing making it
really easy for installation. This
design also has the most surface contact with tubing, compared to ‘C’ or ‘V’
groove shaped ones, and helps transfer the heat to surrounding surface
faster. Some believe, in theory, that a
thicker plate material will transfer heat faster. This is false assumption, as the purpose of
the plate is not to store heat, but to simply provide the conductive surface to
transfer heat between tube and floor.
Actual performance shows that there is negligible benefit to using a
thicker plate material but it will otherwise end up adding significant cost. This is why it is instead better to focus on
using the conductivity of the plate material. Copper is a better conductor than
aluminum, but the cost of copper is so much more than aluminum that it is usually
cost prohibitive for any build.
Therefore, aluminum offers the best value by performance. Even within aluminum, there are tempered
alloys that are more conductive than other alloys. I tend to only use the tempered aluminum heat
transfer plates to ensure I am getting the best conductivity for the
price. Here is link to the plates I have
used with great performance:
There are more items than are displayed
on the website. I’d call if looking for
a different size or item.
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