EcoTech Hydronics & Heating - Technology and the Physics of Heat Transfer

The physics surrounding heat transfer are not complex. The primary law is that heat moves from warm to cold. Any object or thing that is warmer than another nearby will give up its heat to the cooler object. This is the reason we feel cooler when walking down the frozen food aisle at the grocery store. It isn’t that the food cooler is giving off cold air; rather, our body is radiating its heat to that cooler object.

There are 3 ways heat is transferred: conduction, convection, and radiant heat transfer.

Conduction is how heat moves through solid objects, or from one solid object to another when they are in contact. When we reach for an item in the frozen food aisle it feels cold to the touch because we give up heat from our hand to that object. Similarly, when we stand on a cool basement slab or a tile floor, we give heat up from our feet. Thus, it feels cold to us.

Convection is the manner in which heat moves from a solid surface to a fluid or gas (such as water or air). Motorcycle and lawn mower engines cool themselves this way. The engines have fins around the hot areas which disperse their heat into the air. Hot-water baseboard heating systems do the same thing. Hot water is circulated through a copper pipe, which itself gets hot, and the heat is given up to the air. The pipes have aluminum fins along their length which speed this process up significantly by increasing the contact surface area. By physics, warm air (not pure heat) rises, and draws cooler air toward the bottom of it as a result. Baseboard heaters have an opening at the top and the bottom for just this reason.

Radiant heat transfer is infrared light moving through space from one object to another, and no contact between the objects is needed. The best example of this is the sun, which emits enormous quantities of infrared light. This light travels uninterrupted through the 93 million miles of space to the earth, where the radiant energy from the light rays is absorbed by the earth’s atmosphere and the earth itself. We only feel the heat from the radiant energy when we absorb it ourselves. Infrared light shares at least one very important characteristic with visible light. It travels in straight lines, regardless of direction, at the same speed, 186,000 feet per second.

What system should I use?

Congratulations on your choice of radiant heat for your home or office. Radiant heat is simply the best. It offers unsurpassed comfort, great flexibility with respect to architectural design and furnishings, and it is environmentally responsible.

EcoTech Hydronics & Heating Ltd. custom designs every system to suit the conditions in which it will be used. Our flexibility, creativity, and years of experience guarantee that the system we design for you will be the best possible solution. You will experience:

i. Complete comfort regardless of outside temperatures

ii. Silent, efficient operation

iii. A draft and dust-free, hypoallergenic environment

iv. Increased re-sale value in your home or commercial building.