Seewalds 36: Waiting for the Next Cute Kid Video or Photo

[apandaaries]

7 hours ago, SassyPants said:

How often does radiant heating have problems that require ripping open the floor? The way it’s just layed in always made me leery. I have large, ply length ceramic tiles in my bathroom and I often wish they were heated.

Not sure about how they work here in the States, but Korea has the ondol system, which is similar. Those floors are everywhere in Korea, and they are absolutely amazing. It's so much more effective to have the heat come from the floor and then rise up, rather than pushing warm air through vents on ceilings. Should a miracle ever occur where I get to design/remodel a house to my specifications, I'd absolutely have heated floors. 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

6 minutes ago, apandaaries said:

It's so much more effective to have the heat come from the floor and then rise up, rather than pushing warm air through vents on ceilings.

I've never lived in a place where the heat came from vents near ceilings, those are just returns.  the heat comes from the registers near the floor.

[Justme131]

I hadn’t either until my parents built a house and the heat/AC vents are in the ceiling.

[apandaaries]

1 hour ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I've never lived in a place where the heat came from vents near ceilings, those are just returns.  the heat comes from the registers near the floor.

Heat from the ceilings seems popular in some places. My mom and several other friends/relatives have that set up. In Korea, I met my ex, who was in the military. The American bases had A/C and heating, and both were through ceiling vents. Made the difference between the American and Korean systems that much more noticeable. Heated floors were far superior.

[SilverBeach]

9 hours ago, SassyPants said:

How often does radiant heating have problems that require ripping open the floor? The way it’s just layed in always made me leery. I have large, ply length ceramic tiles in my bathroom and I often wish they were heated.

Radiant heating here, in my mid-century modern house. Never any problems, no floor ripping at all, LOL. Mine is actually in the ceiling except for the master bath, where the tile floor is warm and cozy. Love radiant heat.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

2 minutes ago, apandaaries said:

Heat from the ceilings seems popular in some places. My mom and several other friends/relatives have that set up. In Korea, I met my ex, who was in the military. The American bases had A/C and heating, and both were through ceiling vents. Made the difference between the American and Korean systems that much more noticeable. Heated floors were far superior.

that's interesting.  heat at the ceiling does seem crazy inefficient.

[VelociRapture]

We live in a town house style condo. Our main living floor has air vents on the floor*, but the upper level has them in the ceiling. It’s not a big deal to us because heat rises, so we stay pretty comfortable in the winter while we’re asleep. 

*This can be an issue when you have a toddler. We’ve found food and missing crayons in there before. Thankfully the grades are easy to lift up so it’s easy to remove everything. 

[AtlanticTug]

I've never seen vents near the ceiling, that seems weird to me. All of ours are in the floor. If I had to design a house, I'd put radiant heating in the basement floors for sure, and maybe in the bathrooms. I wouldn't put it under my wood floors because it works best with engineered wood floors which I don't like the look/feel of, and doesn't work with all natural wood types or wood thicknesses. I really hate the look of ceramic tiles throughout the house, to me, they belong in the kitchen or main entry only, but I don't live in a tropical place. Since the vast majority of the house is hardwood, doesn't make sense to me to do radiant floor except in the basement.

[QuiverFullofBooks]

My house and my parents’ house both have heat coming from ceiling vents. Both  are in the eastern US and built in the 1960s. 

[Someone Out There]

In my house I have 3 forms of heating, 1) Gas powered central heating coming from the ceiling, 2) A single heating/cooling wall unit, and 3) a fireplace.

I have never used the fireplace (I intend on getting rid of it at some point), so I can't comment on its heating abilities.  The Gas heating I find expensive to use here so I don't use it anymore, I do prefer it coming from the ceiling though as I find the floor vents get in the way of furniture placement.  My preferred heating option is the wall unit, it is the one that makes me feel the warmest and is cheaper to run than the gas.  It probably helps that it ends up giving a more pleasant temperature than I was willing to put the gas up to.

I think that while floor heating is nice if you are heating your house all day (which is what I understand some locations need to do), if not then it is more expensive to run and slower to heat you up due to the lead-in times.  In my instance on weekdays I only need to heat my place for about 4-6 hours if that in the evening so the under floor heating wouldn't be worth it.

[TheMustardCardigan]

I lived in a house in NC as a child with floor vents. Every other place I’ve lived had had ceiling ones. In FL we also really don’t turn on the heat very often, as you can imagine. 

[fluffernutter]

My kids were ridiculously hard to keep socks, shoes, tights, hats, shirts, pants, dresses, skirts, coats, diapers, or any other garment on their bodies when they were little. Maybe we were more... permissive? lazy? laid-back? than most, but if they had clothes on we were winning at parenting. Shoes and socks totally optional if they were inside. Dirty floors don't bother me either, especially in the middle of a party. 

[The limit does not exist]

We built a new house about 2.5 years ago. All the homes being built around us (regardless of which national builder you chose) have heat and a/c through ceiling vents. They also only have one large air return in the whole house. The homes are all built on concrete slabs due to the high water table so it would be difficult to have floor vents. We've never had an issue with heating or cooling and I assume it all works fine because of insulation and whatever engineering they did when designing the homes.

[Sky with diamonds]

Speaking of floors, I'd rather have carpet. Used to have carpet in almost every room in my old place, here it's fake wood floors. I'm nervous that my parents could end up slipping on it. Might get an area rug for the living room soon. 

As for heat, I have forced air heating. 

[VineHeart137]

Another Florida girl here, our current house was built in 1985 and the vents are all in the ceiling, although of course we don't need to turn the heat on very often.

Count me in as a carpet hater, especially having a cat (and formerly, a dog as well) and babies who crawl around on it. Thinking of all the nastiness that gets trapped in there squicks me out. I think there's only so much a vacuum can do. Plus from a parenting perspective, potty training was a lot easier (for us) when I didn't have to worry about pee accidents on carpet lol. When we moved in the house had cheap looking vinyl flooring which we switched out for laminate. Growing up we had typical south Florida tile.

[SassyPants]

8 hours ago, Sky with diamonds said:

Speaking of floors, I'd rather have carpet. Used to have carpet in almost every room in my old place, here it's fake wood floors. I'm nervous that my parents could end up slipping on it. Might get an area rug for the living room soon. 

As for heat, I have forced air heating. 

Throw rugs are a bigger slip risk for he elderly-

[Casserole]

7 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

Throw rugs are a bigger slip risk for he elderly-

Yup, we were always told in school that throw rugs were the #1 risk for broken hips in the elderly. @Sky with diamonds you're definitely better off buying your parents slippers or those slipper sticky socks to keep at your house if slipping is a concern. 

[Kailash]

1 hour ago, VineHeart137 said:

Another Florida girl here, our current house was built in 1985 and the vents are all in the ceiling, although of course we don't need to turn the heat on very often.

Count me in as a carpet hater, especially having a cat (and formerly, a dog as well) and babies who crawl around on it. Thinking of all the nastiness that gets trapped in there squicks me out. I think there's only so much a vacuum can do. Plus from a parenting perspective, potty training was a lot easier (for us) when I didn't have to worry about pee accidents on carpet lol. When we moved in the house had cheap looking vinyl flooring which we switched out for laminate. Growing up we had typical south Florida tile.

I agree about carpeting. Also, carpets tend to be worse for people with allergies. I’d go hard wood in a heartbeat. We rent an apartment with carpet and I steam clean it frequently but still wonder just how clean it is.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

12 minutes ago, Kailash said:

I agree about carpeting. Also, carpets tend to be worse for people with allergies. I’d go hard wood in a heartbeat. We rent an apartment with carpet and I steam clean it frequently but still wonder just how clean it is.

thanks for making me appreciate my hardwood floors that I'm washing today.

[clueliss]

My apartment has wall vents near the ceiling.  The hvac unit is also the hall ceiling.  

[Carm_88]

I have laminate floor that is super dangerous to anyone wearing wool socks, I use it to slide from the bathroom to the kitchen when I'm barely awake. One of these days I'm going to slide too hard and knock myself out. Until then...I'm going to keep doing it. 

[AliceInFundyland]

Carpeting collects hair. Long hair gets stuck in the vaccuum. All the time.  I resent the entire affair and I have less than 200 ft. of floor to deal with. 

[PainfullyAware]

On 12/29/2018 at 6:54 PM, apandaaries said:

Not sure about how they work here in the States, but Korea has the ondol system, which is similar. Those floors are everywhere in Korea, and they are absolutely amazing.

Yes! I loved ondol heating and radiant floors in general. On the coldest days it occaisionally got too hot to walk around in socks (my preferance) but this isn't an issue if you wear house slip-ons. The floor could get a bit tacky feeling underfoot when it got hot in my apartment, but it wasn't the best quality laminate anyway.

Overall, I'd love to have ondol heating in my bedroom and bathrooms again.

[Silas]

Another south Floridian...although I was raised in Virginia.

Vents are in the ceiling and I despise all the tile in Florida. Carpet is a lot of upkeep and sometimes I think I hate it too but that south FL tile is just hideous and not at all "cozy" to me. I realize that sounds ridiculous (really, I do) but I like the warm, cozy, homey vibes in my house. Not cold, hard tile.  Nevermind that when my son was learning to walk he waited until he could run! Literally, his first steps were him running. I have witnesses to this! Why does that matter? Because a running, uncoordinated baby on a tile floor is a disaster. And there have been a few times where the smallest drops of water can create a hazard, I've had the bruises on my bum to prove it. Ugh. Did I mention I hate tile? 

[StraightOuttaArkansas]

I am a carpet lover. I think the best way is if you are able to start fresh with your own carpet put in, then at the very worst, it is just your and families germs in it. My last apartment had that plastic fake wood laminate stuff in it. I could sweep and vacuum everyday and still there was SO SO SO much dust collecting on it. I never figured out what to do. I never had that issue with my carpet. My husband had an apartment with real hard wood floors for several years and swore they did not collect nearly as much dust as my laminate. His parents have tile all through the downstairs which mostly one open giant room. I hate it. They have radiant heating and still the "feel" is cold (which totally matches his mom *ba dum tiss* really though), so we won't go that route either. Our current place has the worst carpet I have ever seen. It is so threadbare and such an ugly color and texture. Honestly though, it feels like I can keep it cleaner than the laminate though. I dread our upcoming move since we will likely end up with laminate again (seems to be the preferred choice of landlords where we are moving to. I get no carpet, but ugh)