My fiance and I bought a easily old apartment that required a good deal of work.
All of us needed to make a lot of upgrades.
The electrical wiring wasn’t up to code and the plumbing pipes were corroded. The water oil furnace and roof both leaked and most of the windows wouldn’t open. All of the appliances were old and there was water destruction to ceilings, walls and floors. The floors were so badly rotted that the people I was with and I had to tear them completely up. While this was a huge, labor-intensive and valuable project, I saw it as an opportunity. With everything exposed down to the floor joists, the people I was with and I were able to install radiant heating. All of us already had a boiler system set up in the basement. All of us removed the outdated radiators and implemented a series of pipes under the new floorboards. The boiler heats up water, pumps it through the pipes and the heat spreads across the floor. Everything kneeling on the floor also heats up, further radiating heat. The temperature from a single corner of the room to the other is easily consistent. There’s no cold spots or drafts, and the system is totally quiet and harshly clean. All of the device is hidden beneath the floors. It takes up no space and doesn’t look ugly. I don’t need to arrange the furniture to avoid restricting airflow to and from vents. The radiant floors allow for zone control, letting us customize the temperature of each room to comfort preferences and occupancy, getting out of bed on a Winter afternoon or stepping out of the shower onto warm floors is such a luxury. Plus, our daily heating bills are much lower than they used to be.