Dh wants to take out all the radiators and install electric underfloor heating

[Gincognito]

He's mad, isn't he? We will freeze. It's a 3 bed Victorian end of terrace.

He's from a country where they don't do central heating, and he's incredibly suspicious of it. He also resents the space the radiators take up. We need to replace most of the floors anyway, so he wants to stick down this and take out ALL the radiators. He's started taking my doubts a little personally...am I wrong? Will this work?

Flat it has worked like a dream, better than I was hoping. It supplies all heat and hot water for our house without a hiccup. Total cost varies a lot according to the size of your home, the bigger your house the more it makes sense since larger systems are only fractionally more than smaller ones. Ours cost about £8K to install with lots and lots of research.

If you have a smaller place there are also heat exchangers that work with air rather than the ground - these are much cheaper but don't produce so much heat.

Flat to avoid the problem of the boiler coming on all the time, we had them install an intermediate 300L tank that feeds the floor heating. This acts as a heat reservoir and the boiler is programmed to 'top it up' from time to time. It reduces wear on the boiler and makes the whole system more efficient especially when it is not very cold. It might make sense in your case as well.

third, this is really helpful. The ground floor is 1500 square feet or so and perhaps our boiler has a really small hot water tank.

third - tbh less than £100 a month sounds awfully expensive if you have triple glazing and high insulation (unless you live in a mansion of course)

we decided against UFH as we wanted a quick response system and felt wrong about keeping heating on all the time. We now have very good insulation and decent double glazing plus a woodburner which we light in the afternoon and evening. As long as it doesn't freeze too hard the house is a comfortable 19 degrees even in the morning and daytime without any additional heating.

I love underfloor heating but I would NEVER put electric heating my whole house. Definitely put the water pipes in and run it off the boiler. You will prob need to dig up the floor to get the pipes down so here is a large up front cost but it is worth it long term in terms of bills.
I have it in my large kitchen and it is never cold in there. my gas hasn't increased much at Ll

I put in electric underfloor heating in the bathroom when we re-did it about 8 years ago. It was lovely for the year or two I had it switched on (toasty toes!) but since the leccy prices went up I haven't dared switch it on.

Ori - let me put it another way. Our heating
costs went down to about a quarter of what they were before.

DH (electrician) fitted electric under-floor heating in DM's conservatory. It was a retrofit as DM had made some daft decisions about the conservatory at the time of building which made attaching heating to her CH system impossible.

It does work as background heating without cluttering up the room (DM provides enough clutter of her own) and means that she can use the conservatory all year round.

Don't do it. I live in a Victorian terrace and we have radiators in all rooms except the kitchen, which has underfloor heating. Guess which is the coldest (and I mean bloody FREEZING) room in the house?

I think it is absolutely fantastic... it's a different type of 'warm'. Radiators don't heat a room like ufh does... ufh gives you a far more comfortable ambient temperature. Whoever said you either have it 'on' or 'off'... that's not right!

You can have it as low or as high as you like and the thermostat/regulator has far more variations than a normal central heating one.

Also, if you have a problem and need it sorted, no you don't have to take the whole floor up! Especially on tiled floors. Warm-up (the company we used) come with a thermal imaging unit and they pinpoint EXACTLY where the problem is. The worst that can happen is having to have one or two tiles up, no more.

It is quite expensive though and I don't have it blasting out all day. I love it.

Just one more thought. If you have a void under the ground floor, make sure you put good insulation down before the ufh, otherwise you will be heating the void, and as there is probably an airbrick somewhere, the heat will go straight out. You'll need to cut this in so that it sits between the joists. I feel confident that Pigletjohn will be able to advise far better than I!

Ah, but helliebean, what type of property do you live in? How's the insulation?

We installed electric underfloor heating in our hall and kitchen/diner. It works very well - but it also costs an absolute fortune to run. I'm not sure I'd do it again, just from the running costs point of view.

Weve recently had electrid under floor heating in our new kitchen/diner and we love it. Haven't had a new electricity bill yet though!

Gincognito... yes, we are a 13yrold house as opposed to a Victorian property and I really don't know how it will work for you, but a professional company would sort out the insulation underneath I am sure.

I am really sold on it, I am sure it is as expensive as all other forms of heating cos none of them are cheap are they? I just love it that you don't have a radiator blasting out on the wall... the heat from ufh seems to reach every inch of the room and I always feel far more comfortable in the rooms we have it in, than in the ones with radiators. I would love it all over the house.

We have underfloor water pipe heating. It is fantastic! The rooms/floors are warm and if we need to put a bit more heat into the system we put the boiler on for a quick boost for half an hour or so. The rooms all have thermostats. We have different floorings: carpets in the bedrooms, stone floor in the entrance hall and wooden floors in the open plan kitchen and living area, tiles in the bathrooms but they also have an upright towel radiator. We always have lovely warm feet!

I agree that underfloor heating is very comfortable, especially if you have tiled concrete floors which are more gradual. Wooden floors, and also carpet, are insulators and will reduce the amount of heat that reaches the room.

However the concrete slab also takes a long time to heat up, so there is a delay of hours or more, so it is more use if you are at home all day, and if you never have a day that starts out warm and gets cold, or vice versa. Wet UFH is more common in the UK for serious heating, because energy from electricity costs betweeen two or three times as much here as it does from gas (if you doubt me, look at your gas and your electricity bill, and see what the price is per kWh).

If your DH is not familiar with UK heating systems, he may think that we use gas heated wet radiators out of perversity. But it's because of cost. Also the electrical supply coming into a UK house is usually sized for 60Amp or 80Amp max, occasionally 100Amp.

This gives a max available electrical output of (240x60) 14.h kW, or (240x80) 19.2kW or (240x100) 24kW total, including heating, cooking, electric shower, tumble drier, washing machine, dishwasher. An electric shower might use 7kW of this, and the other appliances 2kW to 3kW each. A big electric cooker might use 12kw at peak load.

For comparison, a typical modern gas boiler has an output of up to 30kW, on top of which you can also run all your electrical appliances.

We have underfloor heating and I love it. We restored the house from scratch and it is under a cement layer and then we have wood on top and tiles in the kitchen and bathroom. We also had a new fangled boiler with a decent thermostat and the house is warm and lovely. The children play happily on the floor rather than the cold wood or tiles. We will be going away next week and we will be leaving it in holiday mode programmed to cut in if the house temp goes below 10deg.

PigletJohn, you are exactly right. He thinks we are stubborn and perverse.

We have decided not to go with electric UFH, and as we are not in a position to install a wet system, we are sticking with radiators. As a compromise, we are taking out the old ones and installing new vertical and corner radiators, which will take up a lot less space.

Thanks everyone for your help. Dh bloody hates MN :o

does he come from America, which has a cheap energy policy?

does he understand what 1kWh of electricity costs, and how many you need to heat a house?

Nope, Japan.

Good call. We have a wet system in the extension, and love it. However, we have an electric system in the original part of the kitchen (now extended). We never turn it on because of the cost.

We have an orangery with roof lantern and love it. It's the warmest room in the house (partly due to underfloor heating) and a good temperature in the Summer.
The roof lantern does attract flies though. I do not know if a glass cube would do the same. They do look lovely though, if you're not overlooked.