Ways to efficiently heat a home

One of the questions I've been getting asked a lot is "How are you heating your home?  Is it Geothermal?"
Being highly uneducated about this in the beginning, I didn't even know what geothermal heating was.  But after much research, I can safely say that no, our house is not going to use geothermal energy, but instead will use radiant heat.  We didn't go with geothermal heat for a few reasons.  One is that the initial cost is incredibly expensive at about $40,000- $50,000.  The main cost comes from needing to drill about 125ft deep into the ground and run piping from there to the home.  Once installed, you basically have free heating/cooling.  The other reason is that we did not feel we needed it.  Our home will have a super high efficiency boiler system with radiant in-floor heat and the electrical wiring rough-in for solar panels.  Our roof is angled such that it will suit 2 rows of solar panels which have the potential to have our home heated entirely by solar power.  This option allows us to buy the solar panels a few years down the road when they are more cost-effective and efficient (and when we have the money!).

It was a tough decision on whether to go with a radiant heat or electric radiators.  Essentially, any efficient furnace or boiler could have been used to heat our home via electric radiators, forced air or radiant heat.  This is because our home's efficiency is based on the building envelope being extremely well insulated, and as such will require little energy to heat.  Our builder, Evermore homes, says everything comes back to having a super insulated building envelope and I firmly believe that this change alone would make Saskatchewan homes incredibly more efficient even if every other thing was kept the same with the home build.

Forced air was out of the question from the start.  It provides an uneven heat (ie hottest where the vents are), heats air (which rises to the ceiling, causing the hottest place in your home to be near the roof, not where you are) and requires your furnace to cut in several times throughout the day to keep the house temperature stable (ie the temperature can fluctuate quite a bit).  It is a very inefficient heating system when compared to forms of radiant heat.
Electric radiators are a very efficient and very inexpensive option, with prices similar to forced air.  If you are ok with flat panel radiators on the wall they can provide a more even heat source.  In our Vereco home, the included base heating type was with electric radiators as this is a step up in efficiency from the forced air option.

The ultimate option, and our major upgrade on this home, is radiant in-floor heat.  In this option, tubing is run underneath the flooring (or concrete if in the basement) and is hooked up to a boiler system which heats the water to run through the home.  There are several major advantages.  First, it heats the home where you are (ie the floor) and is warm underfoot.  This allows the home to be set at a slightly lower temperature (say 20 deg instead of 21) without you noticing because the heat is right where you are instead of at the ceiling where forced hot air rises to.  It also heats everything attached to the floor such that standing by windows is not draughty in the winter and walls are not cold.  Because there is no air being blown around, it also creates a healthier home with less dust.  Radiant in-floor heat also provides a very consistent heat if you have flooring that absorbs heat well.  For example, a tile floor has a high thermal mass, meaning it absorbs lots of heat and will give that heat off slowly and evenly over time.  Carpet has a very low thermal mass, meaning it will not absorb heat well and thus can't give it off over time.  Therefore, placing tile throughout our home will mean that when the boiler kicks in and achieves a 21 degree temperature, the house will stay like this for a long time as the tile will give this heat off for longer.  Essentially, carpet is not an option for the thermal mass aspect and hardwood is out because it is not a floating floor and would have to be stapled in through the tubing which carries the hot water to the floor!  Laminates, cork and tile will be our choices and we will pick something out which matches our budget and is environmentally-friendly.

The disadvantages are that in-floor heat is expensive- about $30,000 to do right with a very high efficiency boiler.  The other thing is that Braden and I could find very little information on people doing this in Saskatchewan and as such it will be trial and error to see how much difference our flooring choice really makes in terms of providing a consistent heat.  Our project is especially unique because our home will be more well-insulated than 99.9% of homes in Saskatoon and we aren't sure if this would make up for whatever flooring choice we made.  This WILL for sure affect how responsive our home is to temperature changes.  Because the home is so well-insulated and the floors will hold heat for long periods of time, there is no such thing as changing the homes temperature quickly in response to say a cold weather snap or warm up in the spring and fall.  The home will take a while to adjust given its insulating properties.

There is much to be decided upon still, including the exact boiler we will use and we will keep you posted on this as we start to make decisions on our home.  The company that produces the tubing for the heat is Uponor (http://www.uponor.ca) and has set the benchmark for quality tubing from my research.

Want to know more about heating systems in a fun, interactive way?  This is the BEST website I found for it and is a great way to learn about the different options and why radiant is so energy efficient:
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/egee102/node/2111

Also, we have now begun the process of picking out things for inside the home and will talk about our experience with finding efficient and eco-friendly products!

Ali