If you're looking for clean, safe, energy efficient heating for your home, take a look at hydronic wall heating. While a relatively new concept to many Australians, hydronic heating systems are catching on fast and many new housing developments are including them as features in their new homes, apartments and townhouses.

What Is Hydronic Heating?

A hydronic heating system is a system that uses an isolated boiler to heat water and then distributes the hot water via a closed pipe system into the home. The two most often used types of hydronic heating systems in Australia are floor and wall systems. In a wall system, the hot water is circulated through wall-mounted panels, while floor systems are usually made up of coiled pipes distributed throughout the floor. The advantage of hydronic wall heating over hydronic floor heating is that it can often more easily and economically be installed than floor heating, which usually must be installed under carpets or in a cement slab.

Advantages of Hydronic Wall Heating

In order to fully appreciate the advantages of hydronic wall heating, it helps to first understand the disadvantages of conventional heating systems:

• Radiant space heaters produce a dry heat that is very intense close to the source of the heat, but dissipates quickly. They are called "space heaters" because they are designed to heat limited spaces only.

• Fan forced heaters pull cold air into the heater, warm it with the heating elements and distribute it via fans. While this distributes heat efficiently, it can also re-distribute allergens through the home.

The heat produced by a radiant hydronic wall heating system is neither dry nor intense. Instead, it radiates a gentle heat from wall-mounted panels that cover a larger surface area than a standard radiant heater. The result is a comfortable warmth that spreads throughout the room. Convection hydronic wall heating systems gently circulate warm air without re-circulating allergens and other pollutants that may be present in the room.

The greatest advantage of hydronic wall heating may be in its energy efficiency. Most systems use gas to heat the water in the boiler and solar and energy-efficient electric heat pump options are available as well. Moreover, it is a closed system. Unlike your shower water, for instance, which is heated, used and discarded, the water in a hydronic heating system is re-circulated. Very little water is used and the water that returns to the boiler is still warm, requiring less energy to re-heat to the optimum operating level.

Other advantages to hydronic wall heating include:

• It poses no fire hazard.

• Is safe to touch: the water is circulated at 60 degrees Celsius.

• There are no electrical connections to worry about.

Installing Hydronic Wall Heating

A trained and licensed tradesperson will install the boiler in the most appropriate spot outside the home and the wall panels where required in the house. The sizes of wall panels are determined by the volumes of air that need to be warmed. The only visible part of the system, hydronic wall heating panels come in a variety of attractive styles. Your panels can be individually activated and/or the entire system can be thermostatically controlled. Whisper quiet, clean, safe and energy efficient, hydronic wall heating is an idea whose time has come.