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Underfloor heating and ceiling heating: the same thing?

Published: 03/20/2023 07:50:14
Categories: Installer training , Radiant heating and cooling ceilings

Two surfaces, two behaviours

Both systems heat by radiation at low temperature, over a large area, with no air movement. The principle really is the same. What differs comes down to mass, accessibility and what is placed on top.

Inertia

Underfloor heating is embedded in a screed several centimetres thick. It takes hours to come up to temperature and as long to come down, which suits continuous heating and sits badly with intermittent occupation.

Responsiveness

A radiant ceiling has almost no mass. It produces its effect within a few tens of minutes and stops just as fast, which allows a room to be heated only when it is in use.

What gets placed on top

A rug, a low unit or a bed covers part of the floor and blocks its emission. A ceiling stays entirely clear for its whole life, which is a structural advantage rather than a sales argument.

Renovation

Installing underfloor heating in an existing building means taking up the floor and dealing with the height of thresholds and doors. The ceiling is treated from inside the room, without touching the finishes or the joinery.

The question of feet

That is the classic argument in favour of the floor. A radiant ceiling warms the floor by downward radiation, but it does not produce the direct contact sensation of warm tiling, and it is honest to say so.

Evenness is developed on the dedicated page, and the principle on the inspired by the sun page.

What separates underfloor heating from ceiling heating

Does a heated ceiling work the same way as a heated floor?

I have just read an article online explaining what a heated ceiling is.

It says this: "A heated ceiling works in the same way as a heated floor."

Which would be true if we walked on the ceiling.

A heated floor radiates heat, but it also conducts it. Our feet are in direct contact with the floor, which passes its heat straight into them.

So our feet end up warmer than our head.

In nature, the sun sits above us and warms our head more than our feet. That order suits the body.

A heated ceiling radiates its heat the way the sun does, so the difference in temperature between head and feet works with venous return rather than against it, and heavy legs are less likely.

It avoids sending blood to the lower part of the body, where the vessels are more constricted.

The brain, meanwhile, is better supplied, because those vessels are more dilated.

A heated ceiling is therefore not only a matter of thermal comfort. It is also a matter of how the body responds to where the heat comes from.

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