Radiant heating

By Kolyn “Coach” Marshall

No matter where we go these days it seems as if there’s always someone trying to upsell us on something.

Truth is, the art of upsell is nothing new. Walk into a fast food restaurant and you’re asked if you want to super-size it. Go to the theater and you’re asked if you want to make your popcorn a combo deal. Heck, even Amazon’s in on the program.

Ubiquitous upsells can be awfully annoying, especially when it’s something you know a lot about. But, what if it’s something you know nothing about? Or, better yet, didn’t know to even ask?

This last question is where I find a lot of potential radiant buyers.  They simply don’t know enough about what’s out there to ask.

This is where you—Neighborhood Radiant Installer—come into play.

It’s your opportunity to throw out the option of radiant floor heating or snowmelting. Sounds easy, right? Well . . . sort of.  In order for you to be able to effectively talk about radiant, it can be helpful to know what there is to talk about.

Understanding the want

Depending on the audience, say, home or a business owner, the want or need may vary. For homeowners, they may want to be more comfortable. There’s a factor of efficiency or cost savings, but those are typically secondary to comfort. People really don’t like being cold.

Comfort, however, takes on many forms. But, as the Neighborhood Radiant Installer, it’s important to know what comfort means. One aspect is keeping the room temperature between 68 and 70 degrees. The other facet is knowing how occupants interact with the interior space.  The key driver for comfort is floor temperature.

Ever step out of the shower onto a cold tile floor? In that instant it’s pretty easy to connect to what cold is. Oddly enough, our feet dictate our comfort more than air temperature. It’s the main reason why we have slippers and wool socks. If our feet are warm we feel warmer.

So the easiest way to feeling comfortable is to keep the floors from being cold.  Radiant heat does that with most radiant systems maintaining a floor temperature between 75 and 85 degrees.

Business owners tend to have a slightly different goal in mind. Their focus is more on customer safety, especially when the weather turns cold and the freezing rain and snow start to fall. Or:  employee satisfaction, a great incentive in retaining, and attracting, employees.

As for safety, injuries due to slips and falls plague business owners constantly. It’s a seasonal risk, and source of concern.

Radiant snowmelting systems help keep walkways, parking lots, and access ramps ice and snow free all winter long. This means no more early morning labor; shoveling snow is a thing of the past. No more chemical ice melt. This alone eliminates another key concern:  icemelt tends to get picked up by customer’s shoes and tracked inside, eventually taking its toll on the floor.

The upgrade package

So a spark is struck. Warm floors are something that wasn’t expected but is now very much wanted.

How are these once cold floors now warmed? There are two main ways to provide radiant floor heat: hydronically with water, or through electric resistance.

Hydronic systems rely on tubing being installed in the floor and connected to a heat source. Tubing options range from PEX, to PE-RT, to EPDM rubber. Tubing is connected to a series of manifolds, then those manifolds connect to a boiler, or other equivalent heat source.

If the area to be heated is small, say only a kitchen or bathroom, then an electric product may be best; these use electrical resistant wire or cable to generate heat. Wire is embedded in a lightweight concrete or thinset generally under tile or other masonry material. One of the advantages of electric is there is no need for a mechanical room and no need to physically run piping back through a home or facility.  Electrical installations tend to be less invasive but also tend to be reserved for smaller areas.

With both electric and hydronic systems there are options for controls and thermostats. Most of today’s systems incorporate some form of connectivity feature, giving remote access to users.

 Delivering the Goods

Congratulations Neighborhood Radiant Installer! The Enlightened Customer has decided to go with the radiant upgrade. Now what?

Now it’s time to figure out how to get all those tubes and wires where they’re supposed to go.

Hydronic tubing is generally installed in one of two ways, either in a concrete slab or under a frame floor. In a concrete slab, tubing is typically 6, 9, or 12 inches on center with the tubing approximately 2 inches down from the top. In a frame floor, the tubing is secured to the subfloor, often with heat transfer plates. These plates secure the tubing (usually PEX or PE-RT) to the subfloor while providing good conductive heat transfer to the floor.

Electric systems are installed in a similar fashion to hydronic slabs with the difference being the wire is generally installed on top of the floor in ½ inch thinset with tile or other stone material as the finished floor covering.  An electric system is then connected a controller or thermostat.

Both hydronic and electric systems then operate in the same way any forced air system does. The controller or thermostat is set to the desired temperature and the system operates automatically.

Satisfied Customers

So how does our Neighborhood Radiant Installer know the system is working as expected and the customer is happy? It’s simple:  our Honorable Customer won’t be able to stop talking about the most comfortable heat they’ve ever experienced.

Becoming the go-to radiant expert is the best way to keep the future looking warm and bright.

Kolyn “Coach” Marshall, based in Springfield, Mo., is Systems Engineering Manager at Watts Radiant.

Mechanical Hub takes you to Salt Lake City as they visit with Bob Dudley, co-owner, Harris-Dudley Plumbing & Heating. Bob talks about the company and its reliance on snow. A great part of his business in providing radiant, hydronics and snowmelt systems to the Park City clientele.

It’s been quite the start to 2022 for Ryan Bickerton, owner/operator of Bickerton Plumbing and Heating LLC, Boston. Recently recovered from COVID, his phone hasn’t stopped ringing. He’s been busy, and that’s a good thing.

Mostly specializing in high-end renovations, old houses in the historic areas of Boston and high-efficiency boilers, Bickerton has run his own company since 2014. At the age of 18, Bickerton started into plumbing, working for a larger residential company doing large multi-unit buildings where he worked for 2 1/2 years before moving to a smaller company doing mainly commercial work.

The itch started for Bickerton when he started in construction over the summers during high school, working for a roofing company and a general contractor, basically doing whatever was needed on a job site. “I tried helping whoever needed to be helped on the site—plumbers, electricians, carpenters—cleaning up, making coffee runs, etc. I remember those summers working for the GC and I enjoyed helping the plumbers more than anything else. I realized I was falling in love with the industry, and the rest is history,” says Bickerton.

Nevertheless, Bickerton was encouraged to make an attempt at college even though he didn’t really want to; he gave it a shot anyway. He lasted less than a year and decided that was it. “For me, it was a waste of time and money,” says Bickerton. “My parents were okay with me leaving after giving it a valiant effort, but my father said ‘pick a trade because you’re not going to be sitting around here all day.’”

Bickerton recalls speaking to his father, and a few other people he knew who worked in the trades, and was pushed in the direction of electrical or plumbing mainly because, “you’ll never be looking for work.”

After obtaining his Journeyman Plumbing and Gas Fitting License in 2008, Bickerton completely shifted gears and joined the United States Marine Corps where he was deployed to Afghanistan. It was a difficult decision but joining the military was something Ryan had always wanted to do. In 2008, it was the right time. After six years of service with the Marines, Bickerton returned to plumbing and got his Master Plumbing and Gas Fitting License. “I started doing more and more side work until I landed a few bigger jobs that motivated me to leap into owning my own company. I haven’t look back since,” says Bickerton.

Part of that drive came from his biggest role model, his father, who worked most of his life in a power plant in South Boston as a general mechanic—he could pretty much fix anything and everything that needed fixing. “My father is the hardest working person I know. I remember as a young kid not seeing him for days at a time because he was getting home late and leaving early before we were awake. I knew he was out working hard taking overtime to provide for us. He could and would fix most things around the house. I remember one year our water heater went out on Thanksgiving and he took care of it by himself. I thought that was pretty cool, and still do,” says Bickerton.

As for Ryan, he never considered himself a role model, but he tries to conduct himself that way. Any chance he gets, he’ll speak highly of the trades. “If any young kids ask me about the trades, I do my best to steer them in the right direction and let them know it’s a very viable option. It’s a rewarding career choice, and college and white-collar work doesn’t have to be for everyone,” says Bickerton.

Bickerton’s trade role model was his first foreman, Mike Sheehan, a plumber for 30+ years, his body broken from years of moving massive boilers and extra heavy cast-iron pipe. “But he still loved the trade. He taught me a lot of my early skills, and he would say that this trade has all the potential to do anything you want with it, which has really stuck with me to this day,” says Bickerton.

While respecting these two men’s work ethic, Bickerton knows that balancing work and family life is important. It’s probably his most difficult task, says Bickerton. “I’m usually out the door by 5 am and home around 5 pm, and the kids go to bed between 7:30-8 pm and then most nights I have to do estimates or invoices when they’re in bed so I don’t have as much ‘leisure time’ as I’d like. I try to make every second I’m home count.”

And the weekends are for family. Bickerton used to work every Saturday and even some Sundays. Lately, however, Ryan doesn’t work Sunday unless it’s a catastrophic emergency, and on Saturdays he tries to be done by 12 or sometimes not at all. “Like I said before, I love plumbing and working but I don’t think I’ll ever regret not working more and spending less time with my family so I try to best divide my time in the fairest manner possible.”

It’s clear that family time is most important. “In my spare time, more than anything, I enjoy hanging out with my wife and our children. My wife Micayla and I have been married for six years and our three kids are growing up fast. If I’m not working, I’m with them. They are starting to get into different activities, hockey, baseball, football, swimming, horseback riding, and I just enjoy every second of that. Even if it’s just hanging out and watching a movie, it’s never wasted time for me,” says Bickerton.

Perhaps family means a bit more to Bickerton because his daughter, Mallory, was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder called Rubenstein Taybi Syndrome (RTS). In 2017, Ryan and Micayla, along with some close friends, started a non-profit organization called Mals Pals Foundation. “We have been very fortunate with Mallory. We live in the epicenter for healthcare; she has had an inclusive educational opportunity here in Boston and it helps that we are able to pay for anything and everything she has needed in order to thrive,” says Bickerton.

Mal’s Pals Foundation aims to ease the burden of other families who maybe are not as fortunate. The Bickertons raise awareness for rare diseases like RTS, and they help educate newly diagnosed families. “We are trying to make difference in other people’s lives even if it’s just a small one. You can check us out at malspalsfoundation.org.”

Mallory is now seven-years-old and doing well. “Initially, there were concerns, but honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way,” says Bickerton.

Bickerton looks forward to going to work every day. “But the most rewarding to me is being able to sit back at the end of the day or at the end of a job and look at what I’ve done,” says Bickerton. “I like having something tangible, that I can look at and touch and say I did that, or I fixed that or I created that. Whether it’s fixing a leaking faucet, creating a bathroom where there wasn’t one before, plumbing a 5-unit building completely from scratch or providing someone with heat and hot water for the next 20-30 years. That’s pretty cool.”

In the end, Ryan really loves plumbing, even if he’s stressed out and jobs are behind, or he’s behind on paperwork, or he’s made a mistake and or redo something. “I still consider myself lucky to be doing what I love every day. And on those harder work days, I still get to come home to three beautiful children and a wife who loves me. Every time I walk in the door and they scream ‘DAD!’ all that stress lifts off instantly, and it’s all worth it.”