underfloor heating, what's your experience?

[BlardyBlaaaaa]

Hi there

I know this has been done a thousand times, but could anyone please tell me if I'm deluding myself that having underfloor heating in our kitchen-extension-to-be is a good idea. Is it really extortionate to run the electric kind? Just been to stay with in laws who have it in their bathroom (obv not as big as kitchen) buy say they have noticed no real change to their bills.

I grew up in a cold house, our current house is pretty draughty and the kitchen floor in particular is arctic in winter. It's just a dream I have....

Or how about the wet kind? We'll probably have to have a new boiler anyway... Or is that a nightmare if you have a problem/leak etc?

Thanks, fellow Mumsnetters, in advance.

[Theorientcalf]

I've been told that electric is way more expensive. My in laws have it.

We are having wet flooring in our extension. Our builder is doing it all including the new boiler.

[BlardyBlaaaaa]

And is it expensive to fit theorientcalf? Is it a per metre cost and are you having any radiators too? Thanks :-)

[itsnotjustastick]

my friend has it.

there are spots that are warm, but it doesnt take the chill off.

plus your natural reaction to cold is to pull your feet up. and it feels wrong to keep your feet down when you are so cold

[sacbina]

what kind of flooring are you planning? if tiles then imo it's a must.

[Chewbecca]

My electric underfloor heating was a disaster. Very expensive, didn't fully heat the room (should've kept rads too), thermostat bust twice. Now it is totally broken and we cannot start to work out how mend it without taking whole floor up to identify what the problem is, and the kitchen is fitted on top of the tiles, so no chance of that happening.
We now have a plug in oil filled radiator in the room & it's quite chilly.

[Theorientcalf]

It's a couple of grand for the whole thing, not including new boiler or flooring. Think we are going for nice vinyl rather than tiles as the DC will be playing in there.

[BlardyBlaaaaa]

Oh dear, I çan feel my dream of toasty feet slipping away.... Think we'd go for tiles in the kitchen bit, engineered wood in the dining bit.

Chewbecca that sounds like a blumming diasaster!

[Moknicker]

We did it for our kitchen extension - used the water one not the electric. It is fabulous although there are some cold patches in the room. They used to annoy the #$% out of me but now im used to it. Would recommend it. We use that room the most.

When your builders are installing it, talk to them about putting it closely to minimise cold spots.

[BlardyBlaaaaa]

Oh, ok. Thanks Theorientcalf

[DeckTheHoopsWithBoughsOfHolly]

I know a few people who have it and love it.

We stayed in a self catering place that had it a few years back and I have to say that I hated it. I found it really strange to have hot feet the whole time (it didn't help that it was set to high and we couldn't turn it off). I found myself trying to find cool places the rest my feet on to avoid the heat.

[BlardyBlaaaaa]

Thanks Moknicker. Did you supplement with radiators too? And how are running costs. The other thing I've read is that it (the wet version) takes a long time to warm up. Presumably you have it on a timer?

[Theorientcalf]

No rads, no.

[Theorientcalf]

We know people who have it in their whole house (wet) and love it. Having felt it on my feet I can promise it's lovely.

We thought about wood but were put off as it's an insulator and takes a while to warm up properly.

[BlardyBlaaaaa]

Right, will remember that. Any other good/bad experiences out there?

[WhereYouLeftIt]

Good experience here !

We have wet underfloor heating throughout the ground floor of our house, we put it in maybe ten years ago now. Engineered wood floors on top so that it looks like oak floorboards. No radiators, nor do we feel the need for them. Fairly high ceilings too, so quite a big space to heat. Not sure how running costs compare to what went before, as we changed lots of other things around that time too. Our costs came down, but how much of that was due to a new efficient boiler and better insulation I can't tell.

It is LOVELY to walk on, and if you have any animals they will really enjoy it. A gentle overall warmth, no hotspots or coldspots. An unexpected bonus of that was that draughts seem to have gone.

I love my underfloor heating.

[Marmitelover55]

We have underfloor heating at work (the wet kind) and it's lovely when it works. However, it does seem to go wrong a lot and it seems to cost a lot of £££ to fix

[sacbina]

we have wet ufh throughout the house, up and down on all sorts of surfaces. there was a recent thread I posted on.

its bloomin lovely and wouldn't have anything else. hate radiators!

[LizzieMint]

We have wet heating in our extension, it's north facing and has a lot of glass so wanted UFH rather than radiators. We had a new boiler installed for it, although probably would have needed a new boiler soonish anyway. It comes on once the rest of the house is up to temp (that's just the way the circuit worked for us), takes a while to warm up but then stays warm most of the day. The subfloor is heated by the hot water, then the subfloor radiates the heat gently out. Like a big underfloor storage heater. We also have engineered oak flooring on top. We love the UFH, it's sooooo nice on a cold day to have toasty toes. The kids lay beanbags out on the floor and stretch out on them to warm up.

[escarpment]

I love my electric underfloor heating but I've been rather taken aback at the increase in electricity bills. It's costing me around an extra £20 per month to have it on for a couple of hours twice a day. Does that seem like a lot?

[BlardyBlaaaaa]

thanks for all the replies. I think I'm leaning towards the wet system, though the idea of it breaking down and ripping up flooring is a bit . Maybe we could have electric in our bathroom, just to keep a foot in each camp, as it were.

[sacbina]

we'be had wet down for 10 years and never had any problems. nada. it just works

[PigletInABlanketJohn]

Wet UFH is pretty good, but the cost is very high unless put in when you are building a house or extension.

The pipes are usually embedded in the new concrete before you finish the floor, you can also put it under a wooden floor with insulation and spreader plates.

Because it takes extra time to heat up the concrete slab, it needs a different timer and might be wasteful if you are out all day.

Electric UFH is easier to put in but costs about three times as much to run. It might make sense if you had unusually big solar panels and had excess electricity free.

[Graciescotland]

We're staying somewhere with electric underfloor heating at the moment. In a way it's quite nice to have warm floors underfoot but I am concerned about cost of running. Also find they make the air too dry if left on overnight and take a while to heat up in the morning if you switch them off. We also have a big woodburner which is really the main source of heat/ hot water. I tend to turn on kitchen floor first thing, get the woodburner going and turn off floor after an hour or so when the room (open plan) is lovely and toasty.

I don't think I'd be willing to rely upon it as my only source of heat.

[Madcats]

When we ripped down a 60's/70's extension to our Georgian house and built a better one, we took the opportunity to move the boiler into the utility room and added wet underfloor heating to the (new build) kitchen/bathroom/utility. That was 7 years ago. We love it! I wish we'd dug up the rest of the ground floor to retrofit somehow. We get it serviced every year

It is all on a 1 metre concrete slab plus cellotex insulation. I think the utility thermostat is set to 10 degrees, the kitchen 18 and the bathroom 20. the area is travertine stone tiled. They aren't massively thick (just over 1cm), but they keep warm for hours if there isn"t much through-traffic. We have a towel radiator (with immersion) for the bathroom in case it gets chilly in the summer or there are plenty of wet towels...The rest of the house has gas central heating and a wood burning stove.

I think we probably popped the underfloor heating on mid-September and just had a fire or 2 until November before we switched on the central heating. We tend to time the u/floor to come on 90 minutes before we get up and then it stays warm for ages...with another blast at about 4-6pm so we are good for the evening.

What did we do wrong?
If you chose "wet", then spend some time thinking about where you want the "hot spots" to be. For example, our engineer put a double density of pipes by our back door (the cats loved sitting on the doormat), but we also ended up heating under our kitchen cabinets. We should have designed the kitchen first!

We have potential to run another couple of wet circuits, but we didn't think to put an outlet (probably not the technical term) the other side of the existing flooring.