NY-14-C086 -- The Influence on Surface Coverings on the Performance of Radiant Floors for Both Heating and Cooling

Radiant cooled floors have been successfully used on many projects over the past fifteen years, and many ASHRAE, as well as other peer-reviewed, papers have been written on these projects. The convective cooling performance of a cooled floor has been reported by Olesen and Simmonds; Borressen (1994) reported on the solar absorption of a radiant cooled floor, which was further reported by Simmonds, Gaw, Holst, and Reuss (1996), Simmonds (2006). With this research, the performance of different types of flooring could be predicted to see which ones responded to radiant cooling the best. This paper explains the performance of each type of commonly used floor and analyses the results from a model that predicts the conditions created by each flooring type.