Comfort is something that more and more Americans aren't willing to sacrifice when it comes to their homes. Whereas once in our history it was a luxury to have indoor plumbing, today's quest is for a heated toilet seat.

How else can you spoil yourself? Here's a sampling of some items that you might want to add to your remodeling "to-do" list:

• A ceiling fan that can turn itself on and off and adjust its speed automatically according to the temperature of a room.
• Motion sensors that turn a light on when you walk into a room and off when you exit.
• A smart thermostat that can be programmed to fire up the furnace in just enough time for your home to be toasty when you jump out of bed and then turn off just as you head off to work. This same thermostat will activate the furnace just before your afternoon return home and will shut the heating system down again at bedtime.
• Tired of ice-cold floors in the kitchen or bathroom? Have you considered electric radiant task heating?

What's fueling this phenomenon? Affordable technology. Once reserved for the rich and famous, home automation and electronic devices that improve personal comfort are fast-growing segments of the home-building industry. Even price-conscious high-volume builders are incorporating this technology into new home construction as a means of attracting buyers.

Thus, what many builders once tagged an "upgrade," can now be found as "standard equipment."

There's a bonus to many of these techno upgrades-energy savings. That's a good thing for a couple of reasons. It helps our environment and your pocket book. You get the best of all worlds: increased comfort, decreased energy use and less expense.

Of the comfort items referred to earlier, the one that is least known, yet becoming the most popular is electric radiant task heating. Who enjoys getting out of a warm bed in the middle of winter to stand on a cold floor? Radiant floor heating has been around for ions. The ancient Greeks and Romans used it routinely. And certainly it is no stranger to many American homes. However, there is a difference between the traditional whole-house boiler-driven radiant systems and electric radiant task heating.

The traditional system consists of a network of pipes that are encased in a home's concrete floor. Hot water supplied by a boiler is circulated through the pipes to deliver a uniform and comfortable source of heat. One of the benefits of radiant heat is that the floor is warm. Thus, cold surfaces such as tile and stone, are toasty when you walk on them in bare feet.

Electric radiant task heating is not a whole-house system. Rather, it is designed to be used in specific areas of a home, such as a kitchen or a bathroom.

Here's how it works. A system of small electric cables is installed in the mortar below tile or stone. There are many systems available depending upon the installation configuration. Individual cables and a system of cables encased in a fabric matt are most popular. Larger electric cables can be installed in a concrete slab for a room addition with a concrete floor.

If the thought of tearing up your stone or tile floor is more than you can bear, don't fret. There are systems that can be retrofit below the subfloor (above the underfloor insulation).

A professional tile setter generally installs electric radiant task heating systems and a certified electrician will complete the hookup to the power source and install the controller. Programmable thermostats, such as those discussed earlier, are a popular option with these systems. Let's get one thing straight. Electric radiant (resistance) heating is NOT an energy-efficient or affordable means of heating a home. Electric radiant task heating systems are not intended to heat an entire home; just a few spaces. Just how much electricity do these systems use? At 100-percent power, an average system will use 12 watts per square foot. A typical bathroom with 30 square feet of tiled area will use 360 watts when run at full power. That's slightly less than four 100-watt light bulbs. The real savings is not having to crank up the whole-house furnace when all you want to do is get your bathroom or kitchen warm. Studies have shown that when your feet are warm, the rest of your body feels warm.

Thus, electric radiant task heating allows you to feel comfortable at a lower air temperature and heats the specific rooms where you spend the most time.

For more information on electric radiant heating systems, contact the Radiant Panel Association at 970-613-0100.