If you are thinking of putting in radiant floor heating, YES!!! Especially in the bathrooms. It is a very efficient way of heating and in the Northwest, you absolutely need it on cold tile floors. The only caviat with radiant floor heating is with hardwood floors. Make absolute sure that the hardwood flooring is made to go over radiant floors. Otherwise you can get delamination and warpage.

I just read this thread and would vote against Ardell on this one...even though normally I vote for her. Radiant heat is the way to go!

As far as solar panels...I cannot claim to be overly familiar with them but have seen them around occasionally. It would be a concern here in Seattle with it being more gray so I would really be cautious and talk closely with an expert before moving too far with Solar Panels in this climate.

Durenda,
I am not sure solar heating in "gray" Seattle would work. Would it?

James,

I'm old enough to have seen radiant heat tried for an entire house in the past. It didn't hold up and was near impossible to repair and replace.

I'm sticking with gas forced air heat as my answer :)

Jeremy

Have you looked into solar heating?

Best of luck in your new home

Good answer Ardell, ...but that is based on what's available and common today. Radiant floor heating is an up and coming technology that is supposedly more efficient than your run-of-the-mill gas-forced air heating. As for future re-saleability, ..let's say 10 years from now, the most up-to-date technologies today would be more appealing. It's like carburetors in cars in the 80's. If someone asked what was the best type of engine and you looked at all the cars that sold in years past..they'd all be carburetor based, where in fact at the time, fuel injection engines were up and coming. Of course, nowadays, ..i don't think you can find a car with a carburetor engine. We're in that transition today again... hybrid engines vs. standard. You can't accurately gauge what's more valuable in the future by what is most common today. I stand by my radiant floor heating until the industry says otherwise...which is (and i'll be my own devil's advocate).. perhaps 5 years down the road, industry experts will determine that radiant floor heating isn't all that great). Same could be said about hardiplank siding, ..everyone's using it now, ...who exactly knows how it will turn out ... remember LP?

So... most resale value in the future for a brand new house today ... most likely isn't gas forced air. I think the popularity is stunted due to it being cumbersome to install.

I looked at all 3,400 square foot homes sold in the last six months in Kirkland, Bellevue and Redmond built between 2005 and present. While there were some minor components of radiant heat, the favored by far was gas-forced air heat. Even the homes that showed radiant heat, likely in the bathroom floors, heated the majority of the home with gas-forced air heat.

NAR reported this year that radiant heating was the most preferred and looked for feature by buyers in a new home. They perform a survey each year. You should be able to find a copy of it on their website. It also mentioned central air, lots of closets, and energy efficiency, fyi.

What an excellent question! One I hadn't given much thought about prior. My first reaction was to say heat pumps are a great way to heat a house, but they (to my understanding) only work with the temperature down to a about 23 degrees F (according to wikipedia). Here in the Seattle area, ..that means it should functional year-around for the most part. Radiant floor heating is a "wow" feature right now in my opinion... Kind of like tankless water heaters ... they're in few homes and when they are ...it's a feature that will definitely be called out.

As to which is best and would be the most valuable when you re-sell, ... my guess is going to be the radiant floor heating. I have planned on putting in radiant floor heating when it's time to get a bigger house cause I think it's really cool and know people who have it really like it. As opposed to a heat pump, ... when I show a house with a heat pump, ..it doesn't garner much interest, unless the client knows what it is.

One last thing, ... of the houses I've seen with radiant floor heating, ..it's been in the whole house.