Creatherm: Finally, A Rational System For Installing Radiant Floors

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 10. 3.11
Design & Architecture (flooring)

Radiant heating is lovely and comfortable, but the best installations are in concrete, and that gets time consuming and expensive as installers put down insulation, then wire mesh, then tie the tubing to the mesh and hope that everything stays down and flat when you pour the concrete. Now Philip Proefrock at Jetson Green shows the answer: Creatherm radiant floor panels. It is designed with knurled knobs that let the installer just push the PEX tubing in with his foot.

Philip compares this product to Warmboard, another system that makes life easier for installers; I am not sure they are really comparable, as warmboard doesn’t use concrete. I think that is a problem; there is no real thermal mass to distribute the heat, and I have never really understood the idea of putting an engineered wood floor on top of it, wood is an insulator. The gold standard is a tile or concrete floor, preferably designed for a boost from passive solar.

Creatherm makes it neat and tidy, combining insulation and a way of fixing the tubing, while eliminating the six by six mesh. This makes so much sense. More at Creatherm, via Jetson Green