Underfloor heating

[Bounder]

We would like to install this in our large but freezing kitchen/diner as part of a major refit.
Does anyone have experience/advice about what to go for...I understand that there are two main types - gas fired hot water pipes and electrical.
One thought, what happens if you get a leaking pipe under all that concrete and limestone flooring?!
Any ballpark figures on costs?
Thanks.

Discussed this with the plumber last year (it's one of my dreams to get it installed) and he said that he had never been called out to a leaking underfloor heating system. Electrical is more expensive to run.

bump!

no idea of cost in the uk but have this under our bathroom floor (tiled) and hallway floor (laminate) and would HIGHLY recommend it. Lovely in the winter. Ours is neither gas nor electric but powered by our wood/coal burning CH system - so same idea just different type.
Can't say whether all systems are installed in the same way. But our underfloor heating pipes are set in to the concrete floor (under tiles/laminate) and there is in theory nothing that could cause them to leak (unless you have badly joined pipes - which would be the fitters fault). Having said that we had a stupid laminate fitter (sounds strong, but you'll understand why now!) who managed to drill straight through the floor in to the only piece of piping in a metre radius and caused a big leak!!! His fault - all resolved. But always worth mentioning to any tradesmen who come to your house with sharp tools!

We have it in a conservatory and I love it. It is like walking on a giant hot water bottle. And lounging around on a warm floor is just so relaxing.

Ours is electric and is expensive, so for a normal room within a house I would go for the water pipes system. And if I was doing a self-build I would have it throughout the house. I hate radiators.

We have underfloor heating in our kitchen and it's brilliant.

It is in electrical wire format (you lay the wires down under the tiles in a certain formation)

We found the wire better than mats as you can choice exactly where you want to lay the wires)..

It then has a thermostate on the wall.

It is the only heating we have on at the moment as it just takes the chill of the room (open kitchen lounge sitting room)

Have no idea of price (was doing the whole kitchen at the same time and the cost got swallowed up with everything else)..

got for it - our kitchen is 4 x 4 so worth doing, not sure it would be really worth it for a small space that you don't use often though.

We put this in our bathroom last year - electrical system. DH done it himself. Bought the "mat" off of e-bay, taped it all to the floor, run the cable under the floorboards in the hall and put the thermostat / timer on the wall outside the bathroom. Tiled the floor over the electrical mat. Noticed no difference in electric bills and the warmth is LOVELY - on a timer and can vary the temperature. Its also the only form of heating in the bathroom and warms up the room nicely.

We used this although we only needed a small size - cost about £100 - but well worth it.

You only get one opportunity to do this - that's why we went for it!

HTH

We have a wet and dry system: wet for heating our c. 21 sq m kitchen/diner and dry for our small bathroom. Both great: haven't had to think about heating since (although that's probably also down to the fact that we upgraded our insulation a lot at the same time).

I haven't yet compared costs of running them, but I would expect the electrical system to be more expensive, and for a large area I think the wet system is the only way to go. I seem to recall we spent under £2 k on ours, but I'll check for you when I get access to my spreadsheet at home.

Thanks to you all, this is really helpful.
Gizmo - it would be great to have an idea of costs.

Hi we hav it in our Kitchen. Its the electrical mat type and for an area of 3m*9m it cost us approx £700 you can get it for half of that if you get it from a trade warehouse. You do need special flexible grout if your tiling the floor though to allow the tiles to move with the heat etc.

Not sure how much its costs to run. The leaflet said 1p per day but not sure how reliable that is.

It really is lovely.

we have the gas pipes type in our bathroom and its lovely. Can't remember price as part of lots of other work but it was def more expensive than the electric matting type but I believe it is cheaper to run.

We've had the water system put down in our extension (we have oil CH not gas). I've heard that water based UF heating can be more expensive to install but then cheaper to run than electic. Think electric is fine for a smaller area such as a bathroom.