Radiant Heat

Radiant heat (definition):  noun, heat transferred in the form of electromagnetic (infrared) radiation rather than by conduction or convection.

Last night Patricia and I attended a benefit here in Belfast in order to raise money for the Waldo County 'winter heating fund'.  In these tough economic times, some residents cannot afford to heat their homes.  Heating oil is nearly four dollars per gallon, or about 50% higher than three years ago!  Whenever we get home on a cold, winter night here in Maine, we are so thankful to be warm.  Just the thought of a cold house is very unnerving.

Home heating has been in my 'genes' for as long as I can remember.  As a young boy I would often hear my father, who owned Dirlam Heating Co., discuss heating issues with 'his men', Barrett Jones, and Baisel 'Spence' Spencer, at his shop on West 11th Avenue.  Together they installed hundreds of new heating systems in Eugene between 1948 and 1959, both commercial and residential.  Their specialty was floor 'radiant heat', which consisted of placing a 'closed loop' of 1/2 inch copper tubing on a 4 x 4 inch wire mesh on top of a bed of pea gravel, prior to pouring a concrete slab floor.  Hot water circulating through the tubing would heat the floor, which in turn would 'radiate heat' into the room.  The post-World War II housing boom was going strong in Eugene, and most of the new homes were one-story, and built on a slab floor with no basement.  This was an ideal situation for my dad when it came to selling radiant heat.  In the late 1940's these systems used oil burners as water heaters.  Dad would store ten or more new 250 gallon oil tanks in the back of the shop.  Deanna and I had more fun jumping from one tank to another, as they were all stacked on end.  Sure glad we never fell to the ground!

I was able to help the family business in the summer of 1958.  Dad taught me how the tie the copper tubing to the wire mesh by using 10 inch pieces of wire.  I would travel from job to job with Barrett and Spence in a 1953 Ford panel truck with the Dirlam Heating Co. logo painted on both sides.  At the job site I would follow behind Barrett and Spence as they rolled out the tubing, and would make a tie every four feet on a straight away, and then tie each 180 degree curve with three ties.  Once the tubing was in place, Barrett would test the closed system by using a portable air compressor.  He would stop by the next day to make sure that there was no drop in air pressure on the gauge.  This process ensured that once water was placed in the tubing, there would be no leaks!  My dad would then give the concrete guys the okay to pour the slab floor.

Barrett and Spence were always so kind to me, and would often bring along an extra bottle of Coca-Cola so that I could join them in for a 'coke break' at the job site.  This was an added bonus for me, since we kids were only allowed one bottle of 'pop' per week at home.  My cousins in Minnesota had never heard the term 'pop', and they always laughed and said it was 'soda', not 'pop'.  Coke came in a six-and-a-half ounce glass bottle that was refillable.  Barrett showed me how you could tell where the bottle originated by checking the bottom of the bottle.  We had mainly 'Eugene' bottles, but occasionally we found 'Medford', or even 'Sacramento'.  Barrett liked to tease me in a good way, so whenever we would arrive at a new job site he would proudly announce to the plumbers that I was the boss, so be careful what was you say!  Every month or so he would ask me if I had a girl friend, and I would always reply with a 'not yet'.

Each year Dad would have a booth at the Home Show at the Lane County Fair Grounds in Eugene, which would feature his latest 'radiant heat' technology.  He and my mother would paint by hand all of the signs, and the heating diagrams, for his exhibit.  Hundreds of folks would stop by over the course of the weekend to discuss heating options with him or Barrett.  Dad's biggest 'break through' came in 1953 when he invented a novel 'electric furnace' that could take the place an oil burner.  The local power company, EWEB, was offering electricity for less than one cent per kilowatt hour (about 1/2 the cost nationwide), now that hydroelectric power was readily available from several new dams in the Cascade Mountains.  This new electric furnace would heat water on demand by use of a series of heating elements inside in a manifold made with large copper pipes.  Dad always preferred Honeywell thermostats, and controls, for his radiant heating systems due to their high quality and reliability.   He even visited their headquarters in Minneapolis in the early 1950's to find out about some of their latest new products.

In 1948, my dad sold his '36 Ford Coupe in which he first traveled to Oregon, and purchased a used 1939 Chrysler Imperial 8 cylinder sedan.  This beautiful maroon car, like some autos in this era, came with no cabin heater.  Many years later my father would tell me that he was able to fabricate a floor radiant heating system that circulated hot water from the engine in order to overcome this deficiency.  I've never heard of anyone else modifying their car in this way!

Dad pioneered another interesting development during his 'radiant heat days' with his friend Bill Eaton, who was a manager at EWEB.  Namely, the use of off-peak electricity to heat a slab floor.  In order to demonstrate the feasibility, the electric furnace at our house, which of course had floor radiant heat, only operated between 10 pm at night until 6 am the following morning.  The warm slab floor would then continue to radiate heat during the day.  The experiment worked, and the house stayed comfortable all day long!  Dad was curious if the earth below the slab remained at a relatively constant temperature, so he drilled a 1/4 inch diameter hole through the slab floor in our family room to a depth of about 10 inches.  He then placed a thermocouple in the hole, and attached it to a big Leeds and Northrup chart recorder, about twice the size of a computer printer, so that he could measure the temperature below the slab throughout a 24 hour period.  Since off-peak electricity can be sold at a lower price than electricity during peak demand, this allowed some folks to save money on their heating bill.  However, this was perhaps not the best way to go for people that enjoy sleeping in a cool room at night!

Eventually copper tubing became very expensive, and floor radiant heat was rarely called for by architects and builders in the Eugene area.  Electric baseboard heaters became a much cheaper option, so Dirlam Heating had to make the transition to yet another new technology.  However, my father always felt that nothing compared to the comfort of floor radiant heat.  The invention of cross-linked polyethylene tubing, commonly called PEX, ushered in a dramatic revival of radiant heat in the U.S. and Europe, in recent years.  I'm sure that this 'comeback' would have made Dad very happy.  He was always hopeful that wind and solar energy would become the method of choice for heating both homes and commercial buildings.  Perhaps this dream will come true too.