Electric Under Floor Heating In New Conservatory.....or not?

[oliviasmama]

So many different opinions, I'm having radiators too as we live in the middle of the Peak District and winters are freeeezing!! I have been told definately not to have UFH as it breaks and doesnt last and also that it's the best thing ever. Builders are starting on Monday so I really need to make a final decision. Help please.....

I'd have rads and ufh - you can set the ufh (which is expensive to run but pretty cheap to install ) at a low temp ti take the chill off the floor and maintain air temp through your rads

We have ufh in our orangery and it is lovely but doesn't really warm the room fully and is rather expensive to run.

It's lovely walking on it when it's on though :)

thanks everyone, for the extra £500 to install it I think I'll go with it in the hope that it doesn't break, I have a friend who's got UFH in their extension and after 5 years one of the panels has broken, no option but to lift all her lovely floor tiles to sort out the problem!

No no no. Electric underfloor is suitable when used with rads. It will cost a fortune in a conservatory and is best suited to small rooms like ensuites/bathrooms etc. Because of the size and heat loose it wont heat the room just keep the floor warm. Not to be confused with hot water underfloor which is extremely efficient. Having worked for consulting engineers for a few years electric is best avoided.

thanks bacon, thats great advice, will say a definate no tomorrow.

If it is a conservatory with a lot of glass it will lose vast amounts of heat in the winter.

You are actually supposed to have a external-quality door between the rest of the house and the conservatory to prevent waste of energy.

lots of people don't. I suppose if you are rich enough to tip buckets of money down the drain you can keep your converatory toasty.

if only PJ, if only........

PJ - how do people get away with having no external door, is it part or building regs or just recommended?
We are thinking about putting a conservatory on the end of our long loungs and accross the kitchen to give an open plan L shaped kitchen diner, but this doesn't sound possible from what you're saying. What are the definitions of a conservatory against an extension with lots of windows - is it to do with the glass roof?, cos I quite fancy sitting in the warm and watching it rain!
What about energy efficient A rated glass - is heat loss still a problem? Do blinds help?

Sorry for the list of questions, we only bought our first house in August and have done the sensible modernising things like replace boiler and top up insulation and are now trying to create extra space to put DC4 in!

We have electric underfloor heating in our conservatory, total waste of time and money. In his wisdom dh also took OUT the radiators so the bloody room is useless most of the year as it's so cold.

Yorky, my friend has a similar set up with her conservatory to what you have planned, she has no external doors and the conservatory adjoins the lounge and kitchen. Her conservatory is always warm and feel like part of the house. I think the heat from the kitchen helps.

Electric UFH is fine, although not cheap to run (we have it in the (large) kitchen - and in the last house we installed it in a bathroom) - except that the thermostat on ours died and it had to be switched to a time-slicing controller instead (alternative was to lift the tiles to replace the thermostat - which the manufacturers were prepared to do under the warranty, but they are large and expensive tiles and I wasn't 100% sure which tile it was under). However, it will not heat the room - just the floor. The cat loves it . My parents have plumbed UFH in their kitchen and it is nice, but very patchy - you can tell where the "hot spots" are - there is a cat on each one.

Yorky Thu 27-Oct-11 10:03:16
PJ - how do people get away with having no external door, is it part or building regs or just recommended?

Building regulations.

It's because the heat loss is so colossal from a fully glazed conservatory with a clear or translucent roof. There are also regulations about the way walls, windows, doors and roofs have to be constructed which incude heat loss limits, to achieve it the amount of glass usually has to be limited, so conservatories don't meet them, hence put a door on and pretend it's outside the house.

People get away with it either by not obeying the law when it's built, or removing the doors afterwards. In the same way you aren't allowed to rob a bank or park on yellow lines, but people do it anyway.

My comment on tipping buckets of money down the drain relates to the enormous heat loss

Wow - you lot are fast, thank you

SO the roof seems to be the biggest concern for heat loss in a conservatory then - logical. Its no skin off my nose if it has to be a brick extension with big windows as one wall would be next to the garden fence so not a great view anyway! It was more the open plan-ness of the kitchen I was concerned about

Back to the original subject of the thread - we have electric underfloor heating in our bathroom (tile floor), and in our dining room(laminate) and that is all the heating we have in those rooms, no radiators, and we're always surprised how quickly they warm up

if it's a brick built extension, it will need building regs approval, and might or might not need planning permission. Also you can have it open plan, as it is not regarded as "outside the house." A conservatory (subject to some limits) is regarded as a temporary structure, like a shed, so is sometimes exempt.

However a brick-built extension is likely to be a much sturdier construction, and can be well-insulated and properly heated, with a proper insulated roof. If you are having a new concrete floor laid, it can have insulation slab under it, and a damp-proof membrane, and this is a time when it is worth considering having wet undfloor heating pipes laid in the floor, to be run off the CH boiler. It is not much of an extra job if you are having a new concrete floor at the same time, and is far cheaper to run than electric. The reason conservatories are difficult to heat is because the heat loss is so great.