When you convert your home's extra outdoor space in to a sunroom, you add class to your home, increase its value, living space area and overall energy efficiency as well. Sunrooms act as passive solar heating systems and are designed to absorb the sun's heat during the day and radiate the warmth through out your house during cold night hours. Dark colored tiles are used for their ability to absorb heat during the day and gradually give it off in the colder part of the evenings and during the night.

Tiles are also moisture resistant and easy to clean. With proper designing the heat collected in a sunroom can flow to other parts of the house through entryways and connective airflows during the day. Since the air in a sunroom is warmer than that in all other parts of the house, this air can be driven to other rooms for warming them up.

Conservatory Underfloor Heating - © Floor Heating Ltd

Floor Heating

Floor heating is one of the best ways under cold weather situations. Materials such as hardwood, tiles etc. are readily used in the construction of sunroom flooring. One way in which sunroom heating can be accomplished is by installing an undertile heating system.  In undertile heating, the heating arrangement is installed directly under the tiles i.e. on top of the screed unlike that of the under floor system where the floor slab itself is heated.

Undertile heating has several advantages over other sunroom heating systems. It mainly warms the floor surface rather than the concrete slab underneath, and therefore consumes much less power for producing sufficient heat. The flooring is warmed up at a much faster rate taking approx. one to one and a half hours as compared to nearly ten hours required in case of 'in slab' or 'under floor' heating systems.

However, since the installation of sunroom flooring is usually done over old concrete slabs or pre-existing decks it is advisable to consult a qualified flooring professional in order to avoid any issues with peeling, unevenness, cracking etc. at a later stage. It is important for the flooring of the sunroom to be able to withstand many hours of direct sunlight and extreme variations in temperature. For managing power usage efficiently a thermostat is necessary with undertile heating systems. Many manufacturers claim that undertile heating systems cut down power consumption by over 50 percent as compared to conventional floor heating systems.

These are some Floor Heating companies with solutions for commercial, resident and public buildings, check them out:

• The Floor Warming Company - www.floorwarmingcompany.co.uk
  
• Floor Heating Systems Ltd - www.floorheatingsystems.com
  
• Watts Radiant, Inc - www.wattsradiant.com
• Warmafloor GB Ltd - www.warmafloor.co.uk

Hydronic Liquid Floor Heating

If your house has a hydronic liquid floor heating system it is another alternative that you can use for your sunroom. Although a somewhat costly option that may require extensive construction work it will let the home's heating system work in the sunroom also. Liquid floor heating systems are quite popular in which hot water from a boiler is pumped through tubing laid underneath the floor. The pumped hot water warms up the slab and the slab's thermal mass absorbs the heat and slowly drives it into the room.

The system offers a high level of comfort, noiseless operation, and improvement in air quality, as there is no dust, toxic or other infiltrations unlike forced-air heating systems that increase the rate of air infiltration.  The temperature in the sunroom, like in other parts of the house, is controlled through valves, pumps and thermostats incorporated in the system for regulating the temperature of the water flow in the tubing loops of the hydronic system.