Retrofitting a house with underfloor heating

[glassbrightly]

Has anyone done this ? We are in a late 80's house. Currently all floors are either tiled or engineered wood.

We're doing some work and would like to consider this, at least on the ground floor.

Look at something like Wundafloor

We're doing this at the moment - dug out the ground floor, laid the pipes for wet underfloor heating and poured concrete back on top. We're going to have engineered wood floors, but we have to wait months for the concrete to dry enough!

Oh wow @UnconsideredTrifles ! Can you live in it whilst it dries? Did you do ground floor only ?

Just the ground floor - and the extension when we've built it! We're not living there at the moment, but I think you could live in it within a few days of the concrete being poured. We've still got to get the heating/hot water/damp proofing sorted before we can move in!

If you look up Sophie Robinson interior designer on Instagram, you can see she had it to laid in the downstairs of her house, it’s saved as a story at the top of the page.
It was laid on top of the exciting floor, a special retro fit ufh, with a low profile of around 14 millimetres, from memory. Think it cost around 5 grand.

We are in the process of doing this, have only done one room so far. We used Wundafloor. We have yet to lay the final floorcovering (parquet). Feels lovely underfoot when on. There can be a lot more work involved than shown on videos depending on your choice of final floorcovering.

Forgot to say the one room is 50 sq m so a fair bit of work. Because we are going to fit parquet we needed to put a 5mm screed over the top of the ufh. That took 31 bags of Wunda's recommended screed @£15/bag (we got it on offer - often nearer £18) plus primer (£50).

If you have a concrete slab ground floor you can get the existing floor cut out with channels for the UFH pipes. - it's a very cost effective option. I saw it on a YouTube video a while ago

Retro fit ufh you don’t even need to cut or dig up anything, its low profile bendy pipes that sit on top of the existing screed.

Sophie’s floor

We fitted it in our kitchen/conservatory and utility room.

We got the floors dug out (concrete) and insulated. Retrofit went on top, 6mm ply, thin screed and Amtico. Lovely and toasty. Set the stat and forgotten about.

You must insulate the floors underneath though even if a minimal level to minimise heat loss.

Yes, I should have added - our ceilings are low, we had no damp-proof and concrete was straight onto soil, so digging it all up and damp-proofing/insulating was the best option. Your house may be more accommodating!