Radiant heat in the ceiling vs the floor

 What are the pros and cons of having radiant heat in your ceiling?  My
apt. building has it in the ceiling and I'm not sure how well it
works.  I was looking through webpages and the radiant heat systems
were all in the floors.

  wrote:

Older apts in Chicago often had it in ceilings too, it works, but
floor is better, or radiators under windows, etc.  Sounds like it may
be an older building?

 
The main thing to consider is how the floor is heated, or whats under the floor.
Having only ceiling heat with a cold floor is rediculous. The main thing about
floor heating is walking on it, and heat rises. The ceiling would have to be
pretty hot before enough radiant heat would be enough, and any air current
would rapidly change the room temp, and the ceiling would be too hot to touch !

greg

 On Jan 9, 9:51 am, zekfr...@zekfrivolous.com (GregS) wrote:


My impression is that all the apts have only the ceiling radiant heat
and that's it.
What is so ridiculous about having just ceiling heat?
(I live on the top floor if that matters.)

 On Fri, 9 Jan 2009 09:57:55 -0800 (PST), Richard Fangnail


I had that 30 years ago.  It was terrible.


Heat rises.  Feet get cold.  It's better to heat the floor so feet
stay warm and the heat better mixes with the room air.  Heating the
ceiling also makes a larger temperature differential between the
heater and the air above causing more heat loss.  


It matters a *lot*.  You have cold air above your ceiling.  The hot
ceiling increases the delta-T, more heat loss, more money.