Western contractors worked, on average, some 19 radiant heating-related projects during the past 12 months, and the majority of those projects were residential and hydronic in nature, according to the first-ever Reeves Journal Radiant Heating Survey.  Conducted online by our sister company, Clear Seas Research, the survey results paint a rosy picture of the radiant heating market in the West. Here are selected tidbits from Western contractors pulled from the overall survey results:

Number of Projects and Trends

More than 40 percent of Western contractors have seen an increase in radiant project work

The average Western contractor worked on 19 radiant heat-related projects over the past 12 months. Precisely half of Western respondents, however, reported being involved with fewer than 10 such projects, while 7 percent said they had been involved in 50 or more.   
    The number responding from the West was slightly higher than other regions of the country, mirroring the slightly higher average number of radiant heat related projects contractors worked on within the Western states.   
    Examining the change in the number of radiant projects Western contractors reported for the past 12 months, a total of about 48 percent said the number of projects they’ve worked on had either “increased greatly” or “increased some” over the past 12 months, similar to the country overall.   
    However, a total of about 12 percent of Western respondents said the number of radiant projects they had worked on had either “decreased greatly” or “decreased some” over the same period.   
    Overall, contractors across the country who said they had seen in increase in their radiant work over the past 12 months gave many and varied reasons to explain the quickening pace. Top among them, some 81 percent, said “customer comfort” was the driving factor, followed closely by “customer awareness of technology.”   
    Other factors cited included, “cost effective heating” (53 percent) “increases home value and marketability” (37 percent), and “better controls and systems available” (32 percent.)

Project Types and Heat Sources

The majority of Western radiant projects are residential hydronic applications

Hydronics and electric radiant are the most common types of radiant heating, both among Western contractors and respondents overall. On average, Western contractors said some 94 percent of their radiant projects involved hydronics while only 6 percent involved electric.
    Residential work is far and away the most common type of radiant project encountered by both Western contractors (86 percent) and respondents overall (88 percent). However, both Western contractors and contractors overall participate in radiant projects in the commercial environment, reporting that an average of 13 percent of their commercial radiant work is hydronic and 1 percent of their commercial jobs are of the electric variety.   
    There’s no question that boilers are an exceptionally popular choice for radiant hydronic systems installed in the West over the past 12 months in that 80 percent of Western respondents said they are the heat source of choice. 
    Water heaters, however, accounted for 14 percent of Western respondents’ heat choices, while geothermal and solar water heating accounted for 3 percent and 2 percent respectively.

Sales and Education

Most Western contractors turn to trade magazines for radiant heating product education

While there’s a lot of radiant work going on out West, just about half of our Western respondents said radiant heating projects generated less than $100,000 in sales during the past year. Three percent of Western respondents, on the other hand, said radiant heating projects accounted for more than $1 million in sales.   
    About 30 percent of Western respondents said they generated between $100,000 and $249,999 in radiant-related sales over the past year, while 19 percent said their radiant sales during the past year fell between $250,000 and $749,999.   
    The great percentage of those sales figures came from revenues generated by the sale of products—heat source, tubing and controls--from different manufacturers used to create a radiant system rather than packaged, “all-in-one” systems on the market.
    About 96 percent of Western respondents, and 84 percent of overall respondents, said they went the multi-brand route when designing a radiant system, while 4 percent of Western respondents and 16 percent of overall respondents said they went with prepackaged systems. When choosing brands of radiant hydronic products, both Western contractors and contractors across the country consider product quality to be “highly important.”
    While both groups also consider product availability, ease of installation, product warranties and ease of maintenance/service to be important, Western contractors rated product availability to be just as important as product quality. Less important to survey respondents were factors like brand reputation, competitive pricing, breadth of product line, their relationships with manufacturers’ reps and sales promotions or incentives.
    On the education front, trade magazines were cited by 83 percent of Western respondents as the resource of choice for learning about radiant heating products. Wholesalers were cited by 55 percent of Western respondents, while manufacturer Web sites were tapped by 48 percent.
     However, some 35 percent of Western respondents indicated the current level if education for radiant heating products is, “fair” or “poor,” while 64 percent of Western respondents said the current level of radiant product education is either, “good,” “very good” or “excellent.”

Methodology

The purpose of the Reeves Journal Radiant Heating Survey was to get a firm, updated grasp on the radiant heating market, including the project types, types of heat sources used, important attributes and the available product education available.   
    The target audience was 6,650 subscribers to Reeves Journal magazine, Plumbing & Mechanical magazine as well as opt-in subscribers to the BNP Media Radiant E-Newsletter.   
    Between Sept. 26 and October 12, 2007, some 8,699 questionnaires were successfully e-mailed to selected subscribers generating 509 responses for a response rate of 6 percent overall. Complete responses from Western contractors were culled from this overall list and compiled separately. Five $100 American Express gift certificates were offered as incentives to fill out and return the survey questions.
    For more information on the Reeves Journal Radiant Heating Survey, or to order a copy of the results, visit the Clear Seas Research Web site at www.clearseasresearch.com, and click your way to the “Syndicated Studies” page. The Web-challenged (Who, of course, won't be reading this anyway--Ed.) can always give Beth McGuffin a ring at (248) 786-1619.