2d ago

How is my bedroom being heated?

I'm staying in an apartment temporarily and I have absolutely no idea how it is heated. It's a two-bedroom apartment. There is no thermostat. There are no vents. There is one radiator in the apartment's living room, at the front and down the hall from the bedrooms, and one radiator in the bathroom.

I have felt every wall in my bedroom. All of them are cool. The floor is also a normal temperature.

And yet, despite it being at or below freezing most nights in the past month, I can be in my bedroom without a shirt on and be comfortable. It might be nice to be a little warmer, but I don't feel cold or anything.

I am mystified. How is it being heated?

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43 comments

The floor is also a normal temperature.
Sounds like floor heating. Heated Floors don't really feel warm. They just don't feel cold. From the temperature experience you are having, this sounds like the most likely case
- Interesting! I had no idea. Thanks!
  
  I had heated floors in a Chicago apartment. I would lay tomorrow’s clothes on the floor at night and they were toasty warm when I put them on in the morning. Then, I’d put my blanket on the floor when I left for work and it would be nice and warm when I was ready to jump into bed at night.
- This. I have the same in my apartment. I think a large majority of apartments in my country has floor heating.
- Underfloor heating definitely makes a floor warm to the touch. Source: have it throughout the downstairs of my house and it comes on for an hour each morning.
  
  It depends on how you use the under floor heating. Some people use them like regular heating, where you turn it off and only turn it on when you want it to get warmer. In this use case the floor is warmer than the room and you will feel the floor getting warm. This is however not the most efficient way to use underfloor heating for rooms that are in use most of the time.
  For rooms where people are most of the time, the most efficient use of underfloor heating is to have the water at the desired temperature all the time. That way it's very easy to heat up the water, since if only needs to be a bit over ambient and only the heat lost in the system needs to be replaced. In this case the floor and the room become the exact same temperature and won't feel warm. It just won't feel cold, like the floor would without the heating.
  
  There might have been advances to that tech, maybe it's better thermally regulated now. My parents house had it in the kitchen and I think it was relatively new concept when house was built, I found the heat to be a bit uneven, a bit uncomfortable in some spots.
  
  It was installed 3 years ago, so it's pretty up to date. An hour in the morning warms the floor pretty uniformly, and keeps it at around 21 degrees C for quite some time.
  
  Ah yes, for comparison my parents was built year 2000. 22 year difference in quality!
- Exactly, properly set up underfloor heating in a well insulated room is not hot as it should be regulated on the return, ideally it’s only slightly warmer than the room temperature you’re trying to achieve.
- In the UK? I doubt it very much. It isn't beyond possibility but under floor heating really isn't very prevalent here.
- This is wrong. Under floor heating absolutely get warm to the touch.

43 comments