Under floor heating...... Yay or nay?

[jojosapphire]

Hi we are in the middle of a large extension, after reading about it on here we are planning on wet UFH in the kitchen and utility room.
Im not sure if it's just because the builders aren't keen on digging up the old floor and fitting it or what, but 2 of them keep mentioning how expensive it is to fit. And they are now saying it will cost loads to run as well and we would be better off with radiators.... We have room for them on one side of the kitchen but not on the kitchen side hence wanting UFH....

What are your experiences?

Thanks Jo

It looks nicer (no radiators), but we found it takes a long time to warm up and cool down. So - architects love it, but radiators are probably more practical. We haven't been that pleased with it in the room we put it in. Technology may have improved now, though.

takes a long time to warm up and cool down

Isn't it kinda meant to be 'on all the time' at a low level?

Isn't it kinda meant to be 'on all the time' at a low level?

Possibly that's the way to do it - ours is in a room with big windows, so can get the sun and be very warm (when you don't want it on at all) or quite chilly (when you want a quick boost). And the UFH isn't very responsive to that in the way, that, say, the kitchen radiators are. It's a bit chilly? Stick it on and you're feeling warm in 15 minutes. I don't think you can do that with UFH. I'm no expert, though!

Yay from me.

It looks much nicer than having radiators

We keep ours on low all year round as that's the best way to do it.

I don't remember ours being that expensive to fit

I manage a flat with underfloor heating. Flash flat, built about 10 years ago. It looks great without radiators, but neighbours are busy ripping it up as it is slow to warm up, you are very dependent on the individual room thermostats working, you need to find a good electrician who is confident about maintenance (my system appeared to have some quite novel parts, which presumably were cutting edge then) and it is expensive.

(Like Natalia, a flat with lots of glass so hot in summer and chilly in winter, so on all the time does not suit, and the compressors make quite a noise when it comes on, not great at 6.00am.)

I had this argument with our builders regards ripping up the floor.. you do not need to! You can now get a very thin overlay water system that can be fitted over an existing floor without them having to dig out the screed. It's called poly pipe and it's only about 21mm thick from memory. Look on their website where it clearly states you can lay over an existing floor. Much much cheaper to run than electric longer term and works like a large radiator with a separate thermostat controller.. 2 different sets of builders I had didn't know this solution existed.. but it does and I have it under a new stone floor and it works wonders

We had it in our last house, whole house, gas boiler, in a self build. I really liked it - very toasty in winter. We kept it running 24/7 with just room thermostats to control it, but it was very expensive to run compared to our radiator system in this new house. I think our heating bills are reduced here by 2/3rds, but this house is smaller.

Also, it took 24 hours to reach required temperature, be that higher or lower temps. The underfloor heating company fitted the whole system, including combi boiler, but it was never truly compatible. Many times the boiler had cut out and we hadn't realised until the next day when we realised the water was cold.

I don't think I would have it fitted retrospectively, i.e. having the floor dug up and added to an existing boiler.

We had electric UFH fitted in a new conservatory here but it's not efficient or warm enough to heat the room in winter.
Sorry, not much help with your decision making.

Was going to say similar to BlodPlod

You can get low profile UFH systems which sit on top of your existing floor, so you don't have to dig it up. They raise your floor level by only 18mm (you can get even shallower systems at 15mm). Quite a few manufacturers do them, not just Polypipe. Nuheat do one, for example.

One of the handy things about the low profile systems is they work more like radiators because the pipes are close to the surface, so they are more responsive; heating up and cooling down quicker. They are not quite as efficient as the other type of UFH where the pipes are buried in the screed which acts as a thermal store and you generally keep it on a low temperature all the time, programmed to warm up at times such as in the evening.

I found the underfloor heating store very helpful with advice:
www.theunderfloorheatingstore.com/prowarm-low-profile-kits

I have their system (as above), which is ProWarm. I haven't moved in yet (plus, it's summer), so I can't tell you what it's like to live with.

It wasn't that expensive to install. I could have saved money with bog-standard radiators, but if I had wanted designer radiators, I probably wouldn't have saved much.

I had great difficulty with finding someone willing to quote to fit it, however. Fortunately, the builder I chose has a working relationship with a young'ish plumber who is used to fitting UFH. He hadn't done the low profile stuff before, but was happy to do it. I think he gave me a good price.

I would ask your builders if they know any plumber who do UFH. In my experience, if your builders don't want to do something, you might be better off finding a specialist to do it instead.

I'm so excited to try my underfloor heating (without wishing away the summer of course )

Thanks all, I think we would have to lower the floor even with low profile stuff as it is by the stairs and would effect the rise height for building regs... I'm hoping that with a hive/nest thermostat that will help ...

Yay from me too but it took some time to get used to. You set your thermostat to a comfortable temperature and your room stays at that so you don't have a blast of heat like you get from radiators. Once you're used to it I don't think it costs more to run. During the summer (when it's off) we tend to light the stove when it's cold as the heating would take too long to come up to temp (by which time the weather might have warmed up). Be aware though you can't have just any flooring. Wood needs to be engineered, carpets are a no, as is lino I think. We have tiles and wood and I think our flooring was the most expensive part of our build.