To ask if you've had electric underfloor heating installed?

[Drummingisfun]

Aibu to spend a fortune on electric underfloor heating?

We live in a house with a large open plan kitchen/dining/living area. Floor is concrete with a sort of vinyl fake wood stuff on top. There's no insulation on top of the concrete so the floor is really cold to walk on already, even though I've no need to run the heating yet.

When we do run the heating the floor stays freezing and the kids are sitting on it to play. The radiators don't heat the space effectively at all and there's no spare wall to add extra rads. Adding carpet is not an option as it would get trashed instantly in the kitchen /dining bit.

I feel like underfloor heating would be the solution, but I have a suspicion it might cost an absolute fortune and that installation could be a total nightmare.

Had anyone had it done and can give me positives or negatives?

we have it and it costs a fortune!!
why not put some big rigs down for the children to play on?

Plus points: in a kitchen the floor dries really quickly when you mop it. We have it in our shower room - it's absolutely beautiful, noticeably warm to the touch. But also a noticeable effect on our electricity bills.

In your case, it'd be quite an upheaval to get it installed, not just the installation and associated dust everywhere, but clearing the room, and all the other rooms being cluttered with displaced furniture etc. I think I'd start with cheap, preferably washable, rugs which the kids could drag around to wherever they're sitting.

We do have a rug on the large part of the floor but it's still pretty cold to sit on.
And it doesn't help the fact that the space is overall really cold once the temperature drops - even running the heating constantly doesn't help because there just aren't enough radiators for the space.

We had it in our old house. We kept it on just enough to take the chill off the floor and cost cane down considerably. We had previously used it to heat the room/s and it was stupidly expensive and slow to heat up. It was great when we got that balance though.

Quick drying and nice on your feet when warm.

Downside - tomato sauce dries hard really quickly 😂

We installed it when we first moved in. We have tiled floors throughout the downstairs.

I use it to just warm the floors when it is cold. So not for long, and the different areas have different thermostats - so I can warm one area independently of another. I may put them on for an hour or so.

If I have guests over, I may warm the hall floor etc, or the dining floor (most guests prefer to remove their shoes).

I think it is expensive if you use it as your only heating source - but I don't notice massive expense for floor warming purposes.

perhaps you could get a higher output radiator to increase the ambient temperature in the space.

Wooden floors could be warmer though? You can put thermal insulation underneath them - that may be another option?

We have also looked at getting bigger rads but then that causes issues with the boiler.
The open plan bit is an extension and so there are already 3 more rads on the boiler than when it was installed.

The thing with a cold floor is that I hate cold floors, I have to wear slippers from September to March. But it's frankly embarrassing when we have guests over, people take their shoes off but you can tell their feet are freezing.
My mum now brings her own slippers when she comes for a cuppa because she can't stand it either

The electric heating costs a lot to run. Have you considered the possibility of a wet underfloor heating system? They’re a bit more expensive to install but very efficient.

However expensive upgrading the boiler might be, retrofitting underfloor heating will be £££ more

You have added radiators to the system. Your boiler can't cope. Get a bigger one.

My neighbours have underfloor heating in their bathroom but it isn’t working; they’ve been told the floor may need to come up to fix it. They are not happy...

We have it, it cost a fortune but I bloody love it. Best thing we ever invested in for the house.

Another who thinks a bigger better boiler is your answer. It’s chrsper than installing underfloor heating now and probably cheaper long term as you should need the heating on for less time.
Alternatively lift the floor, insulate under and put back!

Electric underfloor is hugely expensive to run. If you can stretch to it, install wet underfloor heating that runs off your boiler. It's amazing

My mother lives in a retirement village (not in the UK) where all the properties have electric under-floor heating. Nobody uses it, because the running costs are multiples of what people are used to paying for heating. It's not like normal heating that you can turn off and on to heat up the house when you're there, you essentially have to turn it on for winter and run it 24-hours a day.

When my boiler broke down, here in the UK, I found I was able to heat the whole flat (ground and first floor) using only a £30 fan-heater from B&Q. My flat is well-insulated though. (I guess I'm trying to say that the up-front cost of under-floor heating is a little nuts, given there is a possible alternative that costs £30.)

Gas powered under-floor heating might be a good idea, but I think it only makes sense to install when building/rebuilding a house.

Sadly we have attempted the cheap portable heater options. They aren't really effective and tbh it's not very safe either with two little children around. It's such a big space they only really heat the bit in front of the heater.
We didn't do the extension, previous owner did and we didn't twig about the boiler.
We bought the house in August and so we had no idea the space was so cold in winter. we also had no idea that there was no insulation under the flooring.
Upgrading the boiler would be an expensive job I guess, but it's getting a service next week so I can ask the engineer about upgrading radiators /boiler then.