Underfloor heating

Underfloor heating and cooling is a form of central heating and cooling that achieves indoor climate control by embedding heating or cooling elements directly in the floor, transferring heat to a room through a combination of conduction, radiation and convection. Hydronic systems circulate water or a water and antifreeze mixture through pipes, usually of cross linked or raised temperature polyethylene though older installations sometimes used copper or steel, embedded in the floor, while electric systems use non corrosive flexible heating elements such as cables, pre formed cable mats, bronze mesh or carbon film, and can heat a space but cannot cool it the way a hydronic system can. The idea of heating a floor from below is thousands of years old, seen in the ondol systems of Korea and Manchuria and in the Roman hypocaust of around 500 BC, and it re emerged in a modern form in the 1930s and 1940s through Frank Lloyd Wright's radiant heated houses and the development of polyethylene pipe. Today underfloor heating remains most widely used in Nordic, other European and Asian markets.