When my husband and I decided to put tile throughout the entire first floor open combined living room and kitchen, one of my friends said "It's going to be cold in winter." Although, the tile installer told us that "Tile floors are warmer than wood floors". He didn't explain the reason why. Later I though about what he meant and wanted to know why.
It was autumn and the tile installation was finished. Our tile floors were so beautiful and we loved it! Especially my husband, because of its durability and ease of cleaning. We didn't notice much cold in following winter. Rather, I felt the mysterious change of warmness.
Our house upstairs had been slightly warmer than downstairs. Warm air moved up through the stairwell to second floor, since the thermostat is on the first floor. After the tile installation was finished, I would come half way down each morning, and feel a sudden soft warmness touch my skin. "Is that the warm air?" I thought. I felt like the warm air stayed on the first floor. Then I thought, "It can't be", I was in denial. Warm air moves up, and stays there, right? According to my friend, tile floor downstairs is supposed to be cooler.
Tile floors are well known for feeling cool on bare feet. Its cooler than wooden floors at the same room temperature. Tile moves heat faster than wood and is a good heat conductor, tile floor takes heat rapidly from skin. Wood is more of an insulator and tile is more of a radiator. Of course wood takes heat away from skin, but the difference felt has to do with speed. Carpeting is a better heat insulator than wood. It impedes the flow of heat and feels comparatively warm to bare feet. That is the reason why tile floors feel cold. On the opposite side, since it transfers well, it makes an excellent choice for in-floor radiant heat systems of one type or another.
The mysterious warmness that I felt wasn't from the air movement and had nothing to do with touching the floor. Then I thought about fires. I love bonfires. And watching the dancing flames in my fireplace makes me relaxed and warm, especially in cold conditions. The heat comes out from the flames, and not from circulating air. It's radiant heat. So I concluded that the mysterious warmness must be radiating from the tile floors, but we had no heat piping system, so where did the hear actually come from?
As I said, we have tile floor in down stairs and wood floor in up stairs. Our down stairs was warmer in winter, because of the radiant heat from tile floor. Our dogs love heated tile by sunlight. Over night, tile floor release accumulated heat absorbed by the suns infrared eneregy. That's why I felt warmness first thing in the morning.
However, the phenomenon changed and got better after Gaina was coated inside. Gaina contains ceramic beads as the insulator and adjusts to surrounding temperature. Even if you touch it, it doesn't feel cold like tile. So through out our house, we have same comfortable temperature.
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