Radiant & hydronics
Radiant floor heating & hydronic systems, built for Ontario winters.
True North Radiant designs and installs hydronic heating across Barrie & Simcoe County — warm-water systems that heat your floors, your towel bars, even your driveway, all from one quiet, efficient heart.
The fundamentals
How hydronic heating works
Hydronic just means water. Instead of blowing warm air through leaky ducts, a hydronic system moves warm water through sealed loops — and lets physics do the rest.
Water, not air
By volume, water carries roughly 3,500 times more heat than air. That’s why a pair of ¾” pipes can quietly do the work of a whole trunk of ductwork — no blower, no drafts, no heated air escaping through duct seams before it ever reaches you.
The condensing boiler
A modern condensing boiler runs at 90%+ efficiency (AFUE) — but only if the water returning to it is cool enough to make it actually condense. Radiant floors are the ideal partner: they run on the lowest water temperatures of any heating system, so your boiler spends the season at the top of its efficiency curve instead of the bottom.
The manifold
The manifold is the system’s junction box — every loop in the house starts and ends here. 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 floor becomes the radiator
Warm water circulates through PEX loops in the floor, turning the entire surface into one huge, gentle radiator. Heat rises evenly from where you actually live — no hot ceiling, no cold feet, just a room that feels the same temperature everywhere.
What we do
Designed, installed and serviced under one roof
Every system starts with a room-by-room heat-loss calculation and ends with a commissioned, balanced, documented installation. Here’s the full menu.
Whole-home radiant floors
New builds and major renovations, designed from the slab up. Loop layouts, water temperatures and zoning engineered to your plans — then roughed in, pressure-tested and inspected before the pour, on your construction schedule.
Retrofits & single rooms
Warm floors in one bathroom, a basement or an addition — via thin overpour or under the subfloor between joists, depending on your home.
Boilers & mechanical rooms
Condensing boiler installation and replacement, sized from a real heat-loss calculation — never a guess — with outdoor reset and clean, serviceable piping.
Snow-melt driveways & walkways
Glycol loops under concrete or pavers that clear snow and ice automatically. No shovelling, no salt damage, no 6 a.m. surprises.
Towel warmers & hydronic extras
Heated towel bars, hydronic baseboards, garage and workshop heat — small comforts that run from the same warm-water system.
Design & heat-loss engineering
Room-by-room load calculations, loop design and water temperature schedules — for our installs, or as a design package for your builder.
Licensed & insured
- TSSA licensed
- WSIB covered
- Fully insured
Why water beats air
Hydronic radiant vs. forced air
Hydronics, answered
Common questions about radiant & hydronics
Do I need a separate boiler just for radiant floors?
Usually not. A properly sized combi or system boiler can handle your radiant heating and domestic hot water together, and additional zones — towel warmers, garage heat — hang off the same unit. We size everything from a heat-loss calculation so one boiler does it all without short-cycling.
Will radiant work with a heat pump instead of a gas boiler?
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.
What maintenance does a hydronic system need?
Very little — an annual check of the boiler, system pressure and controls keeps everything honest, and snow-melt systems get their glycol tested on the same visit. The loops themselves are sealed and have no moving parts.
Can one system heat the house and melt the driveway?
Yes. The snow-melt circuit runs glycol and is isolated from the house loops through a heat exchanger, but both are served by the same boiler plant. It’s designed as one system with independent zones, not two systems fighting each other.
How do I know what size boiler my home needs?
Not by the old one’s label — 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.
Start with the math
Get a system designed for your home
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.
