I'm remodeling my kitchen and I was leaning towards a radiant floor system, but the contractor plans to install toe-kick warmers because he thinks they are more efficient. The kitchen (about 10'x10' floor space) is on the side of the house with one wall exposed to the outside and a room above the kitchen.

The toe kick warmers will be less expensive. Are they comfortable? I worry that the heat will rise too quickly to make the bottom of the kitchen feel warm enough. Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks.

As kitchens have much of the floor space taken up by appliances and cabinets, there really isn't a 10x10 floor to provide heat. Radiant floor gives off about 25 btuh pe3r sq ft at temperature you can stand on, so you might have 2000 btuh available to heat the floor using radiant. This might be OK, as the floor would be warm and you'd have the appliances providing heat as well during cooking. But, we don't know what the heat loss if the kitchen really is because nobody has done a written or printed heat estimate yet; so all is a guess.

Kick space and radiant floor heaters are approximately equal in efficiency, that is, for every btu you put into the heater, they give it off. However, depending upon what you want from them, not from their designs, they might or might not be equally effective (effective and efficient are different words with different meanings.)

Many people are quite happy with kickspace heaters, aas they heat many thousands of kitchens in homes and businesses. It depends upon whether you want to stand on a warm floor with bare feet or not. The warm air won't rise any faster than the air that comes from baseboard or radiant; the laws of physics don't change from room to room.

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