Underfloor heating - is it worth it?

[starshine1926]

I need to replace the central heating in my house as part of a full renovation. Currently have an ancient gas Rayburn which is only used for heating as the cooker is defunct. The architect has suggested an air heat pump and underfloor heating downstairs. I will not be having the air pump as I am on mains gas. However, underfloor heating sounds interesting as apparently it is more efficient and cheaper to run.

I have been told it's meant to be left on all the time. But surely it would make rooms too hot during a hot Summer (if we ever have one again!). And if you turn it off it takes ages to warm up again. Isn't it more expensive to have it on all the time? I don't have any experience of this type of heating and none of my friends have it. I will be improving my house's insulation at the same time.

We have underfloor heating but certainly don't keep it on in the summer!! I think it just means when you need it, it should be on all the time. I wouldn't be without it but we have tiles floors. Probably wouldn't have it if we had carpets.

I ha e it in the kitchen and bathroom and love it!
We switch it off in summer but keep it on when its really cold.

What type of underfloor heating? My ILs had water pipe underfloor heating, so it was heating whenever their water was, even in summer. It was only for a conservatory, so it was fine. Not too hot. It did a decent job of heating in winter, but I don't think it was as good as powerful modern radiators. Cost-wise, it was fine.

My DF has electric underfloor heating in his kitchen and dining room. It's more expensive so it's not on all the time. As a result, it does take a while to heat up, but once it has, it heats the room reasonably well.

We have electric underfloor heating in our bathrooms. They're not big rooms, so again, it heats the room reasonably well, but you need a radiator too in winter.

We had electric underfloor heating in our old house, in a very large bathroom (bigger than most master bedrooms). It felt nice on the feet, but was insufficient to heat a large room.

What type of flooring will you be having? Also, with electric, it shouldn't be laid in areas you know will be permanently covered. So under sofas perhaps, or beneath area rugs.

I have water underfloor heating throughout the ground floor of a poorly insulated 200 year old cottage.

The floor is 4cm thick limestone, with a much thinner ceramic tile in the bathroom. Different areas are zoned with thermostats for each zone.

With no heating during winter, the indoor temp can be as low as 10deg Celsius - it takes approximately 6 hours for the ground floor rooms to feel comfortable (19 degrees). The floors warm up very nicely, and it makes the rug toasty. The heat is gentle and diffuse rather than fierce and concentrated in spots, which would have been the case with radiators.

I have no radiators downstairs except a heated towel rail / radiator in the bathroom. Being a small room, with thin floor tiles, the bathroom warms up much more quickly.

There is no need to leave the heating on all the time - the thermostat can turn off the boiler once a set temperature is reached.

It was expensive to install - new screed, water tubing kit, tiling over, when I could have used the existing radiators. However due to space limitations, it was an attractive option during major renovations.

I heard it’s a pain if it ever breaks

We have a water underfloor heating system and I found it pretty awful over the winter (first year in a new house). It took ages to heat up and never felt cosy. We only have it downstairs, with traditional radiators upstairs.

Our house is Victorian and maybe the system would be better in a more modern house. I want to rip it out when we have the money!

I used to live in a house with underfloor heating and used to get rashes on my feet because of it.

Don't get electric underfloor heating. We bought our house a couple of years ago and the conservatory has it. It takes a long time to heat up but we kept it on during the beast from the east and the mini beast. Unfortunately my electric bill went through the roof- it cost me £500 for that extra heating (you could see the spikes of usage).

We now don't use it and just do a quick blast from a portable convection heater. Shame because it was toasty warm and luxurious.

Though to be fair it is not linked to any thermostat- basically turn it on and it just gets to its top temp and keeps pumping it out, no way to lower temp.

We've got a water based one for our ground floor (1930s house), it's wonderful, it works really well with our nest thermostat too so it works in relation to us being home or away. The only time we need to think about it is when we are coming back from being away and make sure we tap the app when we are heading back so that the heating goes on for when we get back. The residual heat is wonderful so that in the daytime we don't need the heating on at all even though I work at home. Much better than installing wood burning stoves which are dreadful for the environment.

My parents have underfloor heating and I hate it. Makes my feet swell up. To me, heat coming from the ground just doesn't seem pleasant. But that's obviously a personal preference.

yes! i have it and absolutely love it!

we have gas fed underfloor coils. During winter we leave it on all day- so for 3 months it is on at a constant 20 deg. House is always toasty.

In summer we switch it off/turn thermostat down to 8 deg so it never kicks in.
And bills are reasonable as you don't have spikes of usage.

We have electric which was incredibly cheap but I gather not as cheap/efficient to run as the hot water version. It can get the room quite toasty in under an hour, so we'll usually have it timed for when we get back from work, but sometimes just put it on through the app. We only have it in kitchen and living room at the moment but are intending to have it throughout the ground floor. I do prefer it to radiators.

We have the water version downstairs in a modern house. I love it. We don’t leave it on all the time- each room has its own thermostat. In summer they are all turned to the frost setting.
In winter though I leave it at 21/22 which is probably slightly higher than the radiators upstairs.
I think it warms up as quickly as radiators and does keep it nice and toasty. It doesn’t seem particularly expensive to tin. Our bills are average I think.

I didn’t realise underfloor heating was used to actually heat your home! My MIL has electric underfloor heating just in 2 rooms that are tiled, and it’s set quite low (15 degrees I think) so it just takes the chill off the tiles. They still have radiators that do the actual heating, but it is nice to walk from the carpeted areas onto the tiles and not feel a temperature difference. She has solar panels too, so doesn’t cost her anything to run.

The cats think so

We have water underfloor heating in the whole house, no radiators except for heated towel racks in the bathrooms. The underfloor heating is great. Older systems could cause problems like feet swelling up etc, but ours is so gentle, we hardly feel it. And the house stays comfortably warm. I have to add though that our house is very new and super-insulated.

A lot depends on the flooring. Tiles are best for underfloor heating. Laminate is also good. We have tiles throughout the ground floor and mostly laminate upstairs (upstairs bathroom has tiles). Parquet or carpet does not work that well. Another thing is the type of screed that you use for the floor. We had a liquid one that is heat conducting when it solidifies, so works very well with the heating. The plate type that goes on top of the heating pipes doesn't work nearly as well. (We built our own house, so had to learn about a lot of stuff really quickly...)

We have underfloor heating in the whole house. Turn on in October turn off in April. We have thermostats in each room and keep it at a fairly low temperature except in main living room and kitchen. We have a lot of glass so in winter the sun on those cold frosty days heats up the room so its kicks off. We have half price electricity during the night so that helps. Our electricity bills are obviously high but no oil or gas bill so overall it's the same.
No radiators to pop clothes on. No airing cupboard. But that's not an issue as we are used to it now. As we have so much glass it's good not to have radiators.
Main disadvantage is eg this summer May was cold and we had it off since nice days at beginning of month. Not able to just pop it on for a few hours is a pain. Needs 48 hours to heat up.
Also as kids at college we turn it down in their rooms and if turn up unexpected it cant be cranked up that quickly.

We installed the hot water one in half of downstairs under flagstones. We were told to keep it on all day but the house got too hot and we rarely ever use our normal radiators because we also have a wood burner which, between that and the underfloor heating, keeps us as hot as an old folks home!

It's lovely to come downstairs and feel the floor is as warm as the sunshine on it. Much better than freezing and wishing you'd put slippers on.

But we stopped keeping it on for hour and hours and now use it like normal radiators - on for 3 hours am and pm and that's all we need. Otherwise it gets too stuffy and we need to open windows which kind of defeats the purpose!

We were also told it takes days to heat up but that's not true either. It's only a couple of hours and then you feel the cold is much less cold

The cats think so
Oh yes, if you have cats it will keep them happy all winter

Don’t get electric underfloor heating! It’s £££££ to run. If you’re going to have it (water kind) make sure the inside of your external walls are well insulated - it’ll help the heat to rise up through the house instead of just out through the walls.

You don’t have to have it on all the time but you do need it on for longer periods of time as it has to heat the flow before it heats the room (unlike conventional radiators).

In the last two houses I’ve had it in we’ve also had a wood burner for when you want it toasty warm

Floor, not flow!

We installed underfloor heating with piping set into special ridged underflooring, with a bed of screed and Terrazzo flooring on top. We did it all ourselves and then just had a plumber connect it up to the boiler and certify it, hence it was not that expensive. It is amazing, the rooms aren’t as stuffy compared to traditional radiators and we don’t need to turn the boiler settings up high, achieving a pleasant atmosphere with much less heat required. We have individual thermostats and different heat zones that can all be programmed separately. Our energy bills are really quite competitive. The warmth is very pleasant and is really good for asthmatics or those suffering from allergies. In the bathrooms, we installed the looped pipes closer together, so they can be warmer, even quicker. We have 4 dogs and our DC have loads of friends over, it makes it really easy to keep the place clean. It also looks great not to have radiators on the wall. If installed right, it doesn’t take long to heat a building and keeps a nice ambient temperature. Our house was pretty much a shell though and therefore it was easy to install. But you can get pretty flat subfloor and piping heating systems that can be installed retrospectively.

We have it downstairs. Amtico flooring. You turn the thermostat down, so it isn’t on in warmer weather.

Don’t put a box of crocs on the floor next to your chair though.