Radiant Heat, Concrete Floors

Bob “Hot Rod” Rohr isn’t your everyday installer of heating systems. The Rogersville, Mo., heating expert got turned on to radiant heat about 15 years ago and dove, well, toes-first into the technology. He now specializes in radiant heat and — as an important side interest — loves to challenge himself by putting radiant heat into unusual concrete masses.

Of course, he installs the heat form in concrete floors, where most folks would expect to feel the warmth that radiant heat delivers. He’s also applied radiant in walls and ceiling spaces, chiefly as a solution to heating interior spaces when he can’t get enough BTUs out of the floor.

Then, several years ago, a strange thing happened. On a cold winter day, he was driving past a nearby concrete lawn ornament business when the idea occurred to him: Why couldn’t these concrete forms also be radiantly heated? So he approached the business with the idea and was soon delivering radiant tubing to be pressed into the mold of a large dog, a German wire-haired terrier, which quickly became the world’s first concrete hot dog!

At the next meeting of the Radiant Panel Association, Hot Rod lugged his newly created radiant dog onto the show floor. The 40-inch tall concrete version of man’s best friend — which Hot Rod named “Aqualung” — appeared in brown, black and white, weighing in at a mere 420 pounds. Show attendees loved it. When connected to a homeowner’s hydronic (hot water heating) system, the sculptural whimsy, which he’ll make to order, warms towels outside a bathtub or makes coats toasty warm inside an entryway.