Underfloor heating and insulation

[Suz]

We have decided to go with underfloor heating in the two bathrooms and in the kitchen/family room. Anyone that has underfloor heating seems to love it.

Tips: Is there any thing we need to specify to a builder, or is just stating underfloor heating enough? Any tips as this is still at the 'on paper' stage, and we can still change things.

Controls: The kitchen/ family room will be L shaped, about 20'x22' at widest. Would two controls for the under floor heating in this area be enough? I was thinking of one for the cooking area and one for the rest. Hot flushes are probably just around the corner, and the last thing I'll need is a hot floor, lol.

Insulation: Following on from my question previously about trying to maximise soundproofing between the floors, how will this interact with underfloor heating? One poster suggested using good underlay made a big difference but it wouldn't help underfloor heating I'd imagine.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Are you UFH'ing an upstairs room?

If so pout plenty of insulation underneath, although if you don't mind heating downstairs it's no big deal - the heat won't be lost outside the house at anyrate.

For normal upstairs rooms you want to lift the floor, out in plywood rather than chip if you can, insulate under the pipes and presumably tile over. Putting insulation and carpet over UFH reduces the transfer in the room..leading to higher underfloor temps.

I'd also add a hot towel rail to the bathroom as well.

Slap in as much pipe as you dare by the way..to get maximum heat output..then control it down with balance valves and thermostatted zones.

[PeTe33]

We (I) did the whole of the upstairs living area,kitchen,lounge,hall with UFH (4 zones) mainly because the bedrooms are downstairs and the whole floor was coming up anyway to be re-layed and I wanted to add something for sound insulation.

As it was, all Wiring had to be re-done to take it below UFH support level and all plumbing was re-done anyway.

For increased sound proofing I laid 4" roof insulation (rockwool or whatever) directly on plasterboard (bedroom ceiling) between joists before adding required UFH ply support and cellotex etc etc.

Low frequency noise has been significantly reduced downstairs and high frequency noise is elliminated. Dogs walking across floating wood floor can't now be heard nor can voices which before with thick underlay and thick carpet but no UFH of insulation sounded like they were in the same room.

I would steer away from carpets with UFH and enjoy the beauty and clean lines of a warm bare wood floor. Be aware that the more furniture and rugs you put on your UFH floor the less the heat output.

A heated towel rail in bathroom/toilet is a definate must. You still need somewhere to dry off wet coats/shoes/towels etc etc.

Pete