I'm researching underfloor heating and was wondering if anyone has any advise about it; somebody did tell me that they didn't like theirs because it made their feet too hot! Looking for feedback on this point and other aspects like suppliers and types of installation.
They haven't got used to it yet. As a kid I lived in a house with underfloor central heating and as an adult I still spend half my time (like now) sitting on the floor even though sadly I cannot have underfloor central heating in my current house. As heat rises it is the perfect place to put the heat source
Very impressed by your website. If the house is as good it will be wonderful :)
Anna
~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Lime plaster repairs / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|
Er, best place my arse, it's expensive in comparison to most other types of heating, and not just installation; watch your gas bills soar!
Oh God, please don't tell me DIMM's changed his name again!
KILLFILE
I adore mine beyond belief.
It won't make your feet too hot unless you have extremely poor insulation. Floor generally is no more than about 30C max at the surface. That gives a more than adequate heat transfer into the room.
Thinking about putting the same in my new build. Some one suggested that you are better with hard floor coverings as carpets do not let the heat through so well?? Any thoughts/ what have you? Also how many zones do you split this into. Helping to wire a current new build where the owner is having 7 zones on the ground floor alone. Again I would be interested to know what others think as i always regarded UFH as primarily an always on, i.e. adjust the temp of the pipework to maintain a constant temperature. I can accept a set back during the night for downstairs and understand main areas needing a room stat as lots of guests and you would be cooking. But is more zones the better = normal? I will probably go with radiators upstairs for ease although again would be interested in what others think.
Regards Legin
That's what Anna was saying and hence the reason for her sitting on the floor.
You were ripped off then.
One of the most efficient heating systems available , IF properly designed and installed and IF used in conjunction with a condensing boilers.
Some people like it. Others hate it. If it's for you, see if you can visit someone who's got it and see what you think. Personally, I hate it, it gives what seems to me an unnatural effect (unless you're an Icelander), and would positively go out of my way to avoid it! I have no idea of the costs or reliability of the various options.
This is a factor, but the way iot works is this.
The floor gets hot.
The heat has to travel to teh air to warm teh room.
If yiu put insulation in tehgway (carpet) it has to get a but hotter underneath to get teh surface to teh same temp.
That means there is more heatloss downwards, but you can sort that with extra under floor insulation (polystyrene)
The limit comes when the concrete is so hot its in danger of cracking, and the insulation above is so thick that the room is still cold.
I've got concrete, foam layer, engineered real wood laminate and rugs. It works well. I should have put in more insutlation underneath though. Ive only got 35mm.
As mansy as is necessaray.
Its a moot point.
Whaty I did, was to have one 'zone' for all the UFH. This has a single thermistat and single timer on it. It comprises 8 circuits, all of which COULD be independently controlled, but I don;'t boher. Each circuit has its won flow control valve. In practice I balanced the setup to set the temperatures I wanted, and let the stat control the lot.
Ideally every circuit could have a TRV or even am electric stat going back to a motorised actuator on the manifold. But you end up with a lot of wiring as all those stats need to be 'or'ed' together to drive teh underfloor pump.
We don't run it 'always on' - in winter its on all day, but spring and autumn its on in teh evenings, and at about 5a.m to take the chill off the floor. In summer the stat never brings it on anyway whatever the settings.
It takes about 2-3hours to come up from an overnight low to working temperature.
I agree mostly. Its nice to have it upstairs as well, but it gets expenive in wood floors. I think if I did it agan I would bite teh bullet and do it upstairs, but a lot depends on other factors like appearance of house, budgets and so on.
have a look at
Read thorough all these and as most of them are positive Ithink I'm going to have it, there won't be much money left for furniture so it might be useful to sit on the floor comfortably :) Interesting points about running costs and questions aboiut having it upstairs as well, my architect suggests radiators upstairs as there are some lovely narrow ones out there now, I'm still undecided.
The more zones better I reckon but I'm pretty sure that decison is based on wanting lots of knobs to turn on the manifold!
Defainately going to find somewhere to visit it, maybe look for a show house or somthing or there might be some at the next H&R show.
Not quite. Efficient when running, but as you need it on 24/7, even with temp setback at night, it can be quite expensive to run. For it to provide proper comfort conditions you need to:
If one of the above is lacking you may regret this expensive undertaking. Many companies are pushing UFH kits, even Screwfix have one, these will only create grief for many.
The control can be complicated to attain good comfort levels, this requires specialist skills and controls, all of which is expensive. Most installer will not entertain it as it is too specialised. Only engage a company that specialises in UFH.
It is expensive overall to install, so in a selfbuild you would be better spending the money on insulation to superinsulation standards and having a partial heating system. Then little to go wrong and super low bills.
UFH is fine for large high areas like churches and maybe barn conversions, where you can't reach superinsulation levels because of the existing structure.
What sort of house is being built? I would suggest a re-think on air-tightness and insulation. Look at how the Canadians build houses, who say "Build tight and ventilate right".
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35mm? It seems like you are heating a lot of Suffolk earth. The flowers must love you.
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Building a four bed with timber frame with most of the ground floor open plan but it will be highly insulated with 140 instead of 90 exterior panels but I am lacking in knowledge insulation wise other than that. Will probably invest in double layer boarding or acoustic boarding, perhaps that helps with thermal insulation as well. Will check out the canadians too, thanks for that idea.
Use Warmcell insulation as it kills two birds with one stone. Warmcell is made for timber frame. Aim to get 0.1ish U values in the walls. 400-450mm in the roof. Thermal conductivity value (k) of 0.035 W/mK in lofts and the ability to create airtightness. Do a Google on "Warmcell". Excell industries install it.
Then to get the U vales low enough you may need to spray in Warmcell into the hollow walls and have high performing Kinspan over the outside of the frame, which also eliminates cold bridging through the studs and through the floor joists that hang off the studs. Warmcell gives insulation values that would have walls 25% thicker with other methods.
Have about 100mm of foam in the floor. Avoid cold bridges where the floor, walls, roof meet.
Have triple glazed low "e" windows and highly insulated doors. People forget doors.
Once the U values are right down you can then install a Heat Recovery and Vent system. Have the ducting uprated and have an in-line duct heater battery heated by a gas boiler. That should do the low levels of heating you require, and no rads on walls, etc, expet maybe towel rails in the bathrooms.
To keep water bills right down have a rainwater recyling tank in the garden it will pay for itself quite quickly. Most modern home pay more for water these days than gas.
Once you have your plan, do not backtrack, keep to it. What eco ideas do you have?
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Funnily enough, we take the opposite view. Its a very natural effect. You don't actually feel that the room is being heated at all, unless you come in from outside.
It just feels equable and comfortable, like waliking on a beach in late summer, with the warm sand beteen your toes.;-)
You NEED a circuit per room. In some cases more since the recommended simngle maxim pipe run is 50 meters- 100 meters.
In my largets rooms, tehre are two curcuits of 75 meters each. Thats to get an estimated 80W/square meter output, which is OK for decent insulated room.
Each of thiose circuits has independent balancing abnd shutoof. Thats all in te manifold. (polyplumb)
Whether youu chose to stick extra controls on the circuits is a matter of choice.
In our house is not such an issue. Underfloor covres kitchen, living room, dining room, utility room, downtsiars toliet and dog shower, and rear hall and corridoor - thats also heats the upper stairwell and corridoor as well by convection.
Ther is an annex with a kitchen in it that is also equpiied, but thats turned down to 'frost ssttings; unless we have guests in there.
The front hall is also heated, but fairly inadequuately, and that leaves teh froimnt landing a tad cool, but its not an issue since teh bedrooms up that end have ensuite, so no one neds to pad about there in teh middle of the night getting frostbite :-)
Because of the general lifestyle and openeness of the ground floor bit, we really never need to control most of this indepenmdently, and the doors are uaually all open so the whole ground floor equalises to a more or less constant temperature. Controlled by a single thermostat.
Unless you ahve a real requierment to control areas at precise but different temperatures, and overall stat is probably fine. I am sure that by spending another grand on installation of valevs and stats I could save a hundred quid a year, but its easier to turn the stat down a bit and wear a woolly, and light one of the fires.
I will say though that bedrooms - largely unnocupoied by day, and with less thermal mass - do need to be on a different zone. They genrellay come on at dusk or later, rather than the 3pm which seems to suit the underfloor.
In my case they are equipped with hot water fan assisted convectors. This is for special reason relaed to te hhouse design, and not something I necessarily recommend, though it works pretty well for us.
If I were to do it again, from green field, I think I would underfloor everywhere and run massive cables for stats in every room, but not necessariliy use them. Radio stats might be a good ideas as well, or something that runs on CAT 5, which IS everywhere, and a computer controlled suite of valves.
At least for te upstairs rooms, which are individually used on a occasional basis.
As it is, we just switch the fans off, and let the small amount of water circulating through the fan units do teh frost stat bit.
In principle its no different from rdaioator. In theory each room is a zine, and has a motorized valve and a stat with the whole lot wire orred back to teh boiler and pump. but no one goes that far mostly. TRV's and a stat. You can do the same with UFH if you like. But its ugly to have TRV's stuck everywhere.
Everything helps. Look out for micro leaks and cold bridges that start to really make a difference at high insulation levels. I've got 7" walls stuffed with rockwool, but there are cracks in the airtighteness, and in the wind, it loses efficiency. Be absoulterly meticu;losu on terms of gap filling and so on.
Celotex will give you more isnulation per unit thickness, but it costs a packet.
If ground floor is concrete, go for at least 50mm even 75mm of polystyrene. Epecially if its a raised block and beam floor., I saved a packet by lacing UFH pipe to reinforceing mesh with tie wraps before screeding.
You willlikley have a brick plinth at teh house base - I have. This is also a poor insuator - rockwool bats down teh inside if you can, and lots of it.
Thresholds to the outside will inevitably span that with a 'cold bridge' so be careful, and try and put polystrene up teh edges of the wall to the screed top level. This allows concrete to expand as well.
With insulation, the devil is in the detail. Make full use of acrylic mastic to seal ALL gaps. Or foil tape if using celotex.
Now if the neighbours could mole a geothermal collector under TNP's foundations ...
Owain
We fitted UFH in a new build some 12 years ago and would do the same again - much nicer and cheaper to run than any other heating.
Our neighbour built an almost identical house with conventional radiators. Both houses have similar patterns of occupancy and both use gas condensing boilers. His bills are consistently about 15% higher than ours.
we have it upstairs - using aluminium spreader plates. Works fine.
What difference would it make if you were an Icelander?
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