Many people in Western Pennsylvania are by now fed up with the unusually cold and snowy winter we've been experiencing. We've spent months hunkering down and turning up the temperature on our thermostats.
After reading A Radiance All Their Own in the New York Times, Studio St.Germain has been thinking about how American homes are heated. Most homes today have either a boiler or furnace. In a nutshell, a furnace heats air while a boiler heats water. With a furnace, the heated air is distributed through ducts and registers and is often called a forced air system. The heated water from a boiler is circulated through a baseboard or cast iron radiator which is called a hydronic system. Forced air systems are far more common in U.S. homes today than hydronic ones. However, in Europe it is the other way around and designers have come up with a wide variety of sculptural and imaginative radiator designs. In addition to their innovative design, these radiant systems are more reliable, energy efficient, and provide better indoor air quality than their forced air counterparts.
Our favorites are the minimal Saasz by 5.5 Design Studio, the sleek Graffe by Sciricco, and the natural looking Woody by Eskimo. Let us know your favorite design in the comment section below.
