Is it legal? I can't find any reference... Anyhow, the bathroom is so small that it might be worth extending the elect= ric mat under the shower space - the shower tray isn't fitted yet and it wo= uld be useful to have the floor elevated a bit (so underfloor heating comes= very handy here) to improve the water drainage from the shower and the bas= in. Any advice?
mat under the shower space - the shower tray isn't fitted yet and it would be useful to have the floor elevated a bit (so underfloor heating comes very handy here) to improve the water drainage from the shower and the basin.
I wouldn't. Shower tray will be heated by the shower jet when in use. When not in use, you don't want it heated - you want the water to drain away, and not to dry and leave soap/scale deposits behind in the tray.
lectric mat under the shower space - the shower tray isn't fitted yet and i= t would be useful to have the floor elevated a bit (so underfloor heating c= omes very handy here) to improve the water drainage from the shower and the= basin.
We want a warm bathroom - having a square meter cold when the rest is warm = doesn't make much sense to me - especially when the bathroom is only 3 squa= re meters in total and most mats offer up to 200w/m2. Leaving that square meter cold means the volume inside the shower - being e= nclosed) is going to be a bit colder than the rest of the room. Not all areas in a bathroom are used all the time (including the shower tra= y) this doesn't mean we shouldn't use underfloor heating in certain areas j= ust because our feet are on it only 1-2 hours per day. Common sense tells me that it would be ideal to cover the entire bathroom f= loor - but maybe there are some legal requirements to be met regarding the = shower tray...
I believe that so long as it's earthed (i.e. not the carbon film stuff) you can put it wherever you like.
m doesn't make much sense to me - especially when the bathroom is only 3 sq= uare meters in total and most mats offer up to 200w/m2.
Unless this bathroom is really badly insulated, 400W is going to be more than enough.
enclosed) is going to be a bit colder than the rest of the room.
But not very much colder, because there's a large air gap at the top of the shower cubicle, and the glass provides little insulation. In any case, it will warm up - quickly - as soon as you turn the shower on.
ray) this doesn't mean we shouldn't use underfloor heating in certain areas= just because our feet are on it only 1-2 hours per day.
floor - but maybe there are some legal requirements to be met regarding th= e shower tray...
The only situation I can think of where you might want to cover the entire floor is if there is any possibility of moving the shower tray to a different area of the room in the future.
Do remember that some things will need to be fixed to the floor, like the toilet and shower...
ctric mat under the shower space - the shower tray isn't fitted yet and it = would be useful to have the floor elevated a bit (so underfloor heating com= es very handy here) to improve the water drainage from the shower and the b= asin.
Bathroom zoning rules determine what you can put there, and yes you can. I'= d far prefer wet ufh or SELV than mains personally.
NT
I have just fitted masses of electric underfloor heating. Unfortunatley I did not order it or measure it. The company that sold the UFH did the sizing calulations and they included the matting to go under the shower tray. A brilliant move as the 3 ensuites and one of the shower rooms have flush shower trays. I worked with the plumber to get any excess matting under the bath in a way that I would not get the excess cable damaged with his pipework of fixing screws and I got the tiler to tile under the bath over the UFH.
The designers also worked to an old kitchen plan and an old utility plan (as did I with the electrics). A rejig of the 14 mats for the kitchen/utility, 3 ensuites, two toilets and 2 bathrooms left me with two spare mats and a lot less excess to hide:-) The designers also had put one of the downstairs toilets on it's own mat with controller (I did not do that) so I also have a spare controller and thermostat.
I did a poor-man's underfloor heating for my brother's bathroom some years ago. I snaked a 10mm microbore run up and down between each floor joist and lightly sprayed the top surface of the pipe with black paint (with bare copper being a poor emitter). It was an experiment as they didn't want a radiator in the room. I have to say, it worked stunningly well, and the cost was just a coil of microbore pipe and a TRV (head poked out the end of the bath panel).
I wanted to avoid routing the microbore under the loo (keeping the toilet trap warm didn't seem to be a good idea), but they couldn't make up their minds where the loo was going in time, so I just had to lay the microbore everywhere (although not much under the bath). There were two parallel runs in a small bathroom - a bigger room would require more.
Andrew, was this microbore acting as a large radiator with the valve used to throttle the flow (or the return)? No extra pumps as used on the new builds UFH I wire up?
It was supported about an inch or two under the floor boards. The radiative properties of 10mm copper microbore are probably quite limited simply by the limited size of the emitter. I imagine it works by a combination of convection and emission in the under-floor space, heating up the floorboards (actually
18mm ply in this case, as it was tiled on top). The relatively poor thermal contact with the floor (unlike using heat-spreading aluminium UFH) meant that it can run at the flow temperature of the central heating, rather than needing a mixing valve. This was a first floor room, so there's a ceiling underneath, effectively sealing an air pocket between each joint run. I doubt this would work with a ground floor and ventilated subfloor, unless you insulated between the joists below the pipework. You would need enough space for convection to occur, probably a minimum of 3", but more would be better.No additional pump - it's just across the radiator circuit. I used a TRV in case it turned out to be too good and cooked the room - I had no idea if it would work too well, or not at all, and would have no access to change it after the new floor went down.
It didn't get installed quite as I indended, because I was doing part of it (at weekends) and a plumber finished off connecting it up when I wasn't there during the week. I fitted the microbore loops and terminated it on 15mm copper under the bath, and having run out of time, I left a TRV and stop valve and two air bleeds for him to loop up above the floor under the bath in both the flow and return. He only looped one of them (didn't see which) above the floor and fitted the TRV and the bleed valve at the top of the loop. I had intended the stop valve to be used so the circuit could be balanced, and isolated if it leaked (fortunately it never did). So we couldn't balance it, but the resistance of the microbore seems to be about right to do the job.
The reason for using microbore was that I thought I could thread it all through with each loop as a single piece with no joins. That turned out to be impossible, as after you've threaded it through a couple of turns, it's work-hardened too much to thread any further without a lot of effort. In the end, I think I had a soldered join in each loop. I pressure tested the whole circuit with air before losing access to it under the floor. Next time, I wouldn't bother trying to avoid breaking and joining the pipe. (The plumber was very compilentary about my soldering, and very intreagued at the whole experiment.)
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