Customer Reviews

Radiant Floor Heating

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This book provides an overview of the concept of radiant floor heating (RFH) systems. Although there is useful information provided in the book, it is lacking for useful design tools. Those who are adept at surfing the web are likely to find as much information about RFH from a couple of hours of searching than is contained within this book. Certainly not written for professionals, the text is at times poorly written and somewhat repetitive. I recommend that interested home owners consider the books on RFH by Siegenthaler (Modern Hydronic Heating....) and Holohan (Hydronic Radiant Heating).

I learned only one thing from this book: never buy a technical how-to book unless the author's experience and qualifications are given. R. Dodge Woodson dodged this point because he doesn't have any. As the author of several diverse titles in the McGraw-Hill "Professional" series, he is, obviously, just a non-technical writer. In this case, he has strung together useless platitudes based on what he understands from manufacturers' literature, which isn't much. He can't give any "real answers," as the book cover claims. Only the appendix of this book is useful. It contains data provided by the manufacturers, and that information can be obtained from them directly, probably at no cost! McGraw-Hill, years ago a premier publisher of informative and authoritative technical and scholarly books, should be ashamed of itself.

This book will not benefit anyone. It is repetitive and lacking the necessary detail to truly plan and install a radiant floor heating system. It's unfortunate that books like this are not screened before being made available to the unsuspecting public.

This one of the worst books I have ever purchased. It does not provide "real answers contractors need" as is advertized on the cover. The information provided is mainly taken from web pages and other vendor supplied information. Many repetitions of the limited material as if the author had prepared several drafts and included them all in the published version. Don't waste your money.-Ag

Nice table of contents, but each section was littered with poor writing and repetitive comments about how great radiant heating is. This is obviously just a hidden manufacturer's pitch for radiant heating products.

I will be returning my copy of Radiant Floor Heating by R. Dodge Woodson! I was primarily interested in "Dry Piping Systems. The chapter focused on dry piping systems in the text was redundant, cursory, and didn't "go" anywhere. The figures did not even remotely reflect what the text said. R. Dodge Woodson should start over from scratch with some SUBSTANCE.

This book only tells you that radiant heat is in the floor. Very basic

There are much better books for the those of us who are really technically oriented. I would buy this for my mother.

:-)

McGraw-Hill should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this book to be published! It meets none of the advertized criteria, and you couldn't begin to attempt a design or purchase after having read this thinly disguised manufacturer's sales pitch. There's better information available on the web for free. What's more the writing style is extremely superficial and repetitive, with identical illustrations used in numerous places simply as fillers. The author (if really an actual person) should go into hiding immediately.
The publisher's "text book" reputation really deserves to be tarnished if this is the best they can come up with.
Do not buy this book!

Really not much info in this for it's size. It's the type of book
someone would get if they wanted to get radiant heating, didn't
know anything about it, and were going to hire a contractor to
put it in. This way, they could at least use the right words
describing things.

Surprisingly, it's the only book 2 local bookstores had in
stock on radiant heating.

Modern Hydronic Heating by Siegenthaler had much more info, background,
designs, etc.