Your partner got up in the middle of the night and like a shot those cold toes are attacking your territory with the tenacity of a heat-seeking missile. Lucky for you, the new home will be sporting radiant floor heat - a sure curative for meetings with cold feet at 2 a.m. or a midwinter chill that gets hold of your bone marrow.

Under-floor heating has been used since the Roman Empire when it existed in its peak in state-supported constructions and the villas of the prosperous. Hot air was circulated below tile or brick, supplying a radiant heat - energy that transferred heat through the floor and on to colder objects like Roman recumbant chairs, statues, marble-topped tables and frigid centurions.

With the advent of flexible PEX pipe to the United States in the 1980s, its use has jumped as more products have been developed for the construction industry - among which have been hydro systems to supply radiant floor heating. Unlike forced-air furnaces, modern-day water floor arrangements utilizing PEX plumbing products provide more homogenous heat to a room, are less drying, more economical and a whole lot quieter than past furnaces or metal steam pipes.

PEX tubing is constructed of cross-linked polyethylene, which gives these space-age pipes endurance, chemical resistance, superior mobility, a streamlined installment profile and better temperature adaptability. This polyethylene piping can be exposed to water as high as 200 degrees Fahrenheit in heating schemes.

There are various methods of putting in radiant floor heat. Some use electric line voltage arrangements, but easy-to-use PEX hosing products have made hydronic under-floor heating popular with both home builders and home owners. Because the tube is so resilient, its coils can be utilized in a uninterrupted length, eradicating the need for multiple joints and fittings.

Several radiant floor heating arrangements employ oxygen-barrier PEX radiant piping employed in gypsum concrete. Others incorporate low-mass underlayment - wood boards with recessed niches for flexible piping.

Each remodeling or new-construction project is better accommodated by one application or another, so investigate your hydronic floor heat choices fully. Do your research!