Please, someone, tell me how to work the underfloor heating!

[Catabogus]

We had (wet) underfloor heating installed in a new kitchen 2 years ago. The installers told me it’s best to leave it on low all the time, so we tried this for a few months but the gas bill seemed to be through the roof. So I changed it to come on for a few hours in the early morning and a few in the evening, winter only (same as the radiators in the rest of the house, in fact).

Was this the right thing to do? I’m asking because last winter our kitchen seemed freezing over breakfast, even when I’d set it to come on at 4am and we weren’t eating until 8am. It was set to 18 degrees but the thermometer was telling me our kitchen was rarely above 15 degrees!

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to go back to having it on all the time? I can’t escape the feeling this is really wasteful and expensive - but also can’t face another winter of shivering in 2 jumpers while eating our toast.

Basically, if you have underfloor heating, please tell me how you set it. Thank you!

(Do note I’m not actually considering putting it on yet! I’d normally turn it on in late October - unless anyone can convince me it actually needs to run all year??)

We have wet UFH on the ground floor and once It's cold enough to need it, it's on constantly until the spring. Needless to say, I leave it until as late as possible! I think the theory is, set the thermostats at a relatively low temperature- eg. 17c and only increase the temperature if you find it too cold. ( you may want different temperatures in different rooms). Once you identify the best temperature for an area, leave it as it is until the spring. I don't switch mine off - in spring I turn down the thermostats so the heating never comes on. Hope that helps.

We recently put in a new bathroom and its underfloor heating has recently decided we are Polish, so all the messages on the panel are in Polish.

I need to go up there with google translate open on my laptop and methodically tell it we are English again, but just can't be arsed.

IME underfloor heating is always a pain in the arse, and always blazing on a hot July afternoon but off at 7am in November.

@twirlbite

We have wet UFH on the ground floor and once It's cold enough to need it, it's on constantly until the spring. Needless to say, I leave it until as late as possible! I think the theory is, set the thermostats at a relatively low temperature- eg. 17c and only increase the temperature if you find it too cold. ( you may want different temperatures in different rooms). Once you identify the best temperature for an area, leave it as it is until the spring. I don't switch mine off - in spring I turn down the thermostats so the heating never comes on. Hope that helps.

Oh that’s interesting, thank you! I’m assuming this doesn’t massively increase your gas bills?

@Darkchocolateandcoffee

We recently put in a new bathroom and its underfloor heating has recently decided we are Polish, so all the messages on the panel are in Polish.

I need to go up there with google translate open on my laptop and methodically tell it we are English again, but just can't be arsed.

IME underfloor heating is always a pain in the arse, and always blazing on a hot July afternoon but off at 7am in November.

Oh no! We were sold it as a wonderful solution to all our heating needs, no radiators taking up wall space, and a wonderful warm house for low cost. I suppose I should be grateful ours is at least in English.

I have UFH in my extension and there’s no way I could just have it - the salesperson tried to convince me it would be enough but I listened to the plumber and had wet radiators installed as well.

I frankly find the UFH a total waste of money and time, only heats my feet up and there’s no way I could have it as my only heat source (sorry OP!)

The subfloors need to be well insulated for UFH to work properly. Otherwise it's just for warm toes with back up rads.

I have wet underfloor heating downstairs.
I leave it on and control with the thermostat in each room. At the moment it's set for 16 degrees. In the winter it's 20 and it cuts out when it reaches that temperature.
My house is newish and holds heat well so it maintains the temperature well when it clicks off.

Sort of the same as twirl.
Set to 18 degrees from 6-8am, rest of the time 15.
It was honestly the best thing we ever did to our old house (extension) and wasn't ££ to run. Really miss it now we've moved!

Oh god, I have a hundred year old house I’m renovating and heating engineer (independent ) has just told me I should definitely have underfloor heating with air flow heat pumps not gas boiler!

Does anyone actually love it?

@DinosApple

Sort of the same as twirl. Set to 18 degrees from 6-8am, rest of the time 15. It was honestly the best thing we ever did to our old house (extension) and wasn't ££ to run. Really miss it now we've moved!

Oh really, this is reassuring, tell me more!!!

OP isn't it running to a thermostat?
Ours is "on" all day but obviously now it's 23 degrees outside so it wouldn't click in with the thermostat.

I’m asking because last winter our kitchen seemed freezing over breakfast, even when I’d set it to come on at 4am and we weren’t eating until 8am.

This seems odd though. What sort of flooring do you have and what's the insulation in the room like?

@DragonMamma

I have UFH in my extension and there’s no way I could just have it - the salesperson tried to convince me it would be enough but I listened to the plumber and had wet radiators installed as well.

I frankly find the UFH a total waste of money and time, only heats my feet up and there’s no way I could have it as my only heat source (sorry OP!)

Well that’s a bit depressing! It’s a new extension, well insulated (though with big windows) so I was hoping it would be enough…

@fluoropostit

Oh god, I have a hundred year old house I’m renovating and heating engineer (independent ) has just told me I should definitely have underfloor heating with air flow heat pumps not gas boiler!

Does anyone actually love it?

Similar age house, best thing we ever did

Do you have to dig it up if it goes wrong?

@Stiltonlover

OP isn't it running to a thermostat? Ours is "on" all day but obviously now it's 23 degrees outside so it wouldn't click in with the thermostat.

I’m asking because last winter our kitchen seemed freezing over breakfast, even when I’d set it to come on at 4am and we weren’t eating until 8am.

This seems odd though. What sort of flooring do you have and what's the insulation in the room like?

We have porcelain tile flooring. The room is quite well insulated although big windows/skylights must let some heat escape. It’s a big room with a high ceiling in case that makes a difference.

@PigletJohn should be able to help you.

We have ours on all the time, although it doesn't heat unless the temperature drops. Toasty all winter long, though our house is insulated to the eyeballs. Have you definitely got all systems working correctly though? They are complex systems and we just couldn't get ours to heat up to start with and after playing with all the panels and switches we could find, we called in a professional and found the builder had turned off all the water valves (so our boiler was going like the clappers to heat water prevented from circulating the system ). Got that sorted and haven't looked back, even by our great big windows.

OP, we're really pleased with our UFH - we do have open fires and a wood- burning stove too, but hardly ever need to light them. ( Large Victorian house, was freezing before we installed UFH). Downstairs is set to a constant 18c ( 19c in our sitting room).

We renovated and extended the ground floor ( porcelain tiles and engineered wood floors) and our heating bills fell despite the UFH being on constantly in the winter. Unfortunately they've just gone up...but can't blame that on the UFH!

We have porcelain tile flooring. The room is quite well insulated although big windows/skylights must let some heat escape. It’s a big room with a high ceiling in case that makes a difference.

This sounds exactly like our kitchen, and it's the warmest room in the house! So something definitely isn't right - have you ever had a plumber round to look?

I love my UFH. Best to leave it on it all the time as spend more money heating it up from cold again every day.

I love our underfloor heating!

On all year 16 in summer and 20-21 in winter. We only have it it on in the kitchen hall and utility area. The living room is headed by log burner and we don't routinely heat upstairs (we have rads but don't use them as the warm air rises and it's a new ish build) bit will flick the rads on if it's Baltic coldsnap.

We haven't got our hearing in yet though.

Ours takes a whole day to heat up so you can't keep turning it on and off.

We can't have the rads on a timer because the ufh needs to be on all the time.

So set your ufh to 20 degrees on all the time. Then manually operate the radiators upstairs. You will find that leaving the floors open to upstairs helps the heat to rise up, effectively heating the upstairs with the UFH.

It works for us as we like the upstairs cool for sleeping so we never have them on bar a coldsnap ..

is the floor (under the tiles) wood or concrete?

@cherrypiepie

We can't have the rads on a timer because the ufh needs to be on all the time.

So set your ufh to 20 degrees on all the time. Then manually operate the radiators upstairs. You will find that leaving the floors open to upstairs helps the heat to rise up, effectively heating the upstairs with the UFH.

It works for us as we like the upstairs cool for sleeping so we never have them on bar a coldsnap ..

Radiators and UFH are on separate controls so I don’t think this can be our problem - both can have (different) timings.