Thinking heating open plan spaces is an expensive nightmare?

[Wantarest]

How do you heat your open plan space in a cost effective way? We are thinking about the heating options for our renovated spaces, a portion of which is open plan. We had hope to install a wood burning stove but realised that even with the new Ecodesign/ecofriendly woodburning stoves are apparently bad for your health (recent research is showing that it is a bad idea to have one in your home).

Our floor is suspended above a cellar so underfloor heating would simply escape into the crawl space/void below.

So that leaves radiators. Where to put them is a big headache as they would need to be big and powerful enough to properly heat the space.

I despair. Open plans are very useful but they are a nightmare! Why do we do it?

You can put underfloor heating on the underneath of your floor with metal spreader plates and then insulate underneath. We have done it and it works really well. Not open plan but large draughty rooms.

We have a wood burning stove - fitted this year in our open plan living room/dining room.

Don't know how it's bad for you? Heat the area beautifully, and doors closed etc keeps the heat in for ages once it's gone out.

@CantFindTheBeat there are lots of commentators raising awareness of this. I had my heart set on one but doesn't seem worth it.

Stoves And Pollution: Is A Wood-Burning Stove Bad For The Environment? - Which?

Indoor wood burning raises women’s lung cancer risk by 43%, says US study | Lung cancer | The Guardian

@Geneticsbunny is there a crawl space underneath yours (with bare ground)? Sounds like a possible solution.

When we extended we put loads of insulation under the floors, in the walls, in the roof, and had doors and windows put in which would keep the heat as much as possible. Underfloor heating as well. As a result It’s the warmest part of the house even though it’s most of our ground floor.

I have underfloor heating in an open plan lounge/diner/kitchen. I find I'm always cold, it costs a fortune and takes an age to heat up, I'd much prefer a couple of radiators and a wood burner if I get the chance to choose in future. I'd also build a small room to use as a snug, just room for a small sofa, radiator, and TV.

Yep. We have a crawlspace about 50cm deep and then underneath that a load of stone which forms the roof of the cellar.

The tall standing radiators take up less useful wall space and look really good.

Totally agree about wood burning stoves no longer being an option. We put one in our home about 8 years ago and now no longer use it at all because of the information widely available that they are awful for your lung health and also for the environment. Wish we'd knew that then! I think underfloor heating is your best option.

Thanks all. We are leaning towards wet underfloor heating. We are not entirely sure. The fall back option is radiators. I wish we had thought about this is more detail but in reality, there aren't many heating options. All have their disadvantages when it comes to open plan spaces.

https://www.discreteheat.com/

My friend has something like this in her open plan kitchen diner.
She seems to like it?

I'm not a fan of vertical radiators..the heat is all at ceiling level

We have a large cast iron wood burner (latest spec so v efficient) as it needs to heat a large open plan space. We fully load it with dry wood before lighting and don’t need to add any more … when the fire has burned through, the stove itself remains hot for hours, in fact it’s still warm when you touch it in the morning. I think the way we use it is very low risk, I agree that if you have too small a burner for the space, and have to keep opening it to load more wood, then you are exposing the room to particulates whenever you open the door. So one option could be to get a suitably sized wood burner for the space which only requires one ‘load’ of wood ?

@ThankGodImAnAtheist cast iron is a great material for any heating medium and they can be so beautiful.

I thought the risk arose from small particulates (unseen by the naked eye) escaping through the tinniest of spaces and not just from the frequency of refuelling with wood?

I also worried it would put people off if in the future we chose to sell the property.

@Beebopwasthebest that's the sort of thing the property had when we first moved it. Popular in the US but it was old and no longer fit for purpose but it looked really good (and worked on water running through pipes so just like a radiator).

We have radiators in our kitchen diner. The layout meant there were a couple of walls that couldn't sensibly be used for anything else - a sort of corridor bit, and a bit of wall next to bifold doors that wasn't big enough for anything more than a vertical radiator.

The heat from the vertical rad doesn't stay up by the ceiling at all. It circulates around the room just the same as heat from any other radiator (which rises up to the ceiling and circulates around just the same). It's the warmest room in the house by some margin.

Have not looked this up at all....but didn't one of the Grand Designs this series put in infrared heating (in the ceilings)?

Put underfloor heating in your cellar and then in your open plan area. You’re right that having a cold expanse below the house will make it cold. We have underfloor heating in both. Make sure the walls and windows are adequately insulated. It should not be a problem to keep warm.

Top of the range Daikin air conditioning system that also works as heating. One large wall-mounted unit heats my first-floor open-plan kitchen-dining-living area. Cheaper to run last winter than central heating and MUCH cheaper than the underfloor heating in my previous (also modernist) house.

I have open plan and find it’s easy to heat than my previous 1930s single brick traditional semi.

it’s got cavity insulation, lift insulation and is double glazed.

I have thought about https://www.imaginfires.co.uk/howarth-black-bioethanol-fireplace this biofuel look alike wood burner- for spring and autumn and to make a focal point fire

I thought the risk arose from small particulates (unseen by the naked eye) escaping through the tinniest of spaces and not just from the frequency of refuelling with wood?

No, the draught through the flue will keep particulates going in one direction.

When reloading don't open the door too quickly. I open it a crack, let the air start flowing in, and then open it the rest of the way. If you just open it quickly you'll create a partial vacuum that will briefly direct smoke out of the doorway.