Radiant heating design · Barrie & Simcoe County
Radiant heating design that starts with the math.
Before a single loop goes down, we run a room-by-room heat-loss calculation and design the loop layout, zoning and water temperatures your space actually needs. For our own installs, or as a design package for your builder or installer.
Inside a radiant design
Five decisions, made on paper first
Once the floor goes in, you’ll never see the loops again, so every decision that makes radiant comfortable gets made before installation. Here’s what a True North design settles, layer by layer.
Room-by-room heat-loss calculation
Every design starts with a heat-loss calculation to the CSA F280-12 methodology, the calculated load the Ontario Building Code (9.33.2.2) requires heating equipment to be sized from. Each room gets its own number, sized to your municipality’s design temperature, so nothing downstream is a guess.
Loop layout & spacing
Continuous oxygen-barrier PEX is laid out to each room’s load and shape, covering the space edge to edge. Get the spacing right and the floor heats as one surface: no hot stripes, no cold corners.
Manifold schedule & zoning
Every loop starts and ends at the manifold, and that’s what makes true zoning possible: the primary bedroom, the basement and the garage can each hold their own temperature, on their own schedule. The manifold schedule assigns every loop, with its length and spacing, to its zone.
Water temperatures & outdoor reset
Radiant floors run on the lowest water temperatures of any heating system. The design sets the water temperature schedule and the outdoor reset that adjusts it to the weather outside, which keeps the whole system running at the efficient end of its range.
Boiler & heat-source sizing
The boiler is sized to the heat-loss number, never to the old one’s label, because oversized boilers short-cycle and waste fuel. Low water temperatures keep a condensing boiler at the top of its efficiency curve, and they’re exactly what air-to-water heat pumps produce most efficiently. See how the whole hydronic system works.
Two ways to work with us
Design and install, or the design on its own
Hand us the whole system, or take the design by itself. Builders, designers and anyone who already has an installer get it documented so it can be built exactly as drawn.
One team, from the math to warm floors
Design is step one of every system we install. We walk your home or your plans, run the heat-loss numbers and design the layout, then rough in, pressure-test, commission and show you how it all works.
- Room-by-room heat-loss calculation
- Loop layout, manifold schedule & water temperatures
- Loops pressure-tested before and during the pour
- Zones balanced and commissioned at handover
A radiant design your team can build to
Already have an installer, or need the radiant design for a new build? We produce the design on its own, with loop layouts and manifold schedules that drop straight into your designer’s permit set.
- Heat-loss report, CSA F280-12 methodology
- Loop layout & manifold schedule, with loop lengths, spacing and zones
- Water temperature schedule
- Boiler / heat-source sizing
How a design comes together
From plans to a design you can build
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Step one
Your plans, or a site walk
We walk your home or review your drawings: a new build, an addition, a finished basement or a single bathroom.
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Step two
Heat loss & layout
Room-by-room heat-loss to the CSA F280-12 methodology, then the loop layout, manifold schedule and water temperatures your space actually needs.
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Step three
Review & permit set
We walk you through the design before anything is installed. On new builds, the heat-loss report, layouts and manifold schedules go into the permit set without back-and-forth.
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Step four
Built to the drawing
With a design + install, we rough in, pressure-test before and during the pour, then commission and balance every zone. With a design-only package, your installer builds to the same documents.
Designed first, built to the drawing
What a good design looks like in the floor
Design, answered
Radiant heating design questions
Do I need a heat-loss calculation for a building permit?
In most cases, yes. The Ontario Building Code (9.33.2.2) requires heating equipment to be sized from a calculated heat loss using the CSA F280-12 methodology, and radiant as a primary heat source is exactly what makes municipalities ask for full mechanical drawings. We produce the heat-loss calculations, loop layouts and manifold schedules, and coordinate directly with your BCIN-registered designer so the stamped submission set goes together without back-and-forth.
Can I get the design without the installation?
Yes. Builders, designers and homeowners with their own installer can order a design-only package: the heat-loss report, loop layout and manifold schedule, water temperature schedule and boiler or heat-source sizing, documented so your installer can build to it.
Can you design radiant for an existing home or a single room?
Yes. Retrofits are a big part of what we do. Depending on your home, loops can go into a thin overpour, under the subfloor between joists, or into new construction like an addition or finished basement. A site visit tells us which route fits your space.
Will you build to our engineer’s or designer’s drawings?
Happily. We’ll build to your engineer’s or designer’s spec as drawn and flag anything we’d question before rough-in rather than after, or take the design scope ourselves. Whichever fits how your team runs projects.
Why not just size the new boiler from the old one?
Because oversized boilers short-cycle and waste fuel. We run a room-by-room heat-loss calculation on your actual home and size to that number. It’s the single most important step in the whole project, and it’s where every one of our quotes starts.
Will a radiant design work with a heat pump?
Beautifully. Radiant’s low water temperatures are exactly what air-to-water heat pumps produce most efficiently, which makes radiant floors one of the most future-proof heat distribution systems you can put in a home.
Start with the math
Get your radiant system designed
Book a free consultation and we’ll walk your home or your plans, run the heat-loss numbers, and tell you exactly what radiant would take. No pressure, no guesswork.
