Should I get underfloor heating?

[kitchenplanner]

We're doing a big renovation project to the kitchen dining room, which is 30m squared. We're considering putting in underfloor heating. Can anyone share how much they paid (per m squared), and whether they went for water or electric-based? Would you recommend it?

I've been doing research but people seem to mostly use them for bathrooms (which are a lot smaller). I'm worried a room of our size is going to be bankruptive!

bump!

We have electric in our kitchen and it costs a fortune to have on. It was our only heating in here and we had to put gas radiators in. So if you do get it definitely get a water system.

Don't do it. Storing up issues for the future

Yes underfloor plumbed heating throughout the ground floor is amazing. Heats up the whole house perfectly and cut £100 off our yearly energy bill because we don’t need to switch on the radiators upstairs. But that depends on the house.

@Theriband why do you say that?

@Ozanj what kind of underfloor heating do you have, and what kind of house? We've an Edwardian house and we're getting engineered flooring on top.

We did it this spring in our 50m squared kitchen / diner. We went for water - more expensive to install but cheaper to run. We'll see as the weather gets colder what impact it has.

Ours is electric and so expensive to have on to the point we avoid turning it on if we can.

No. DP designs and sells bathrooms. He said that underfloor heating is a nightmare, it always fails and to repair it, you have to rip up your entire floor and then relay it all. He said if there's one thing he'd never get it's underfloor heating which I hate him for because I want it!

@waxytimes how much did it cost per m if you don't mind me asking?

@flashpaper thanks for the insight. That's one of my fears - that it might break and we'd have to pull up the flooring to fix it - but my husband was very quick to brush it aside.

I’m not sure there’s a huge amount to go wrong with wet underfloor heating….

I hope not any way, just had a big narrow extension built with wet underfloor heating, can’t comment yet as it’s not been switched on. Edwardian house.

We’ve got electric heating under the tiles in both bathrooms, with a towel rail in the en-suite and a radiator In the family bathroom, if goes on for an hour in the morning, the rooms are toasty and it wasn’t expensive to install and we’ve not noticed it being expensive to run. But wouldn’t put it in a big spac3 as that would be like burning money.

@BhortaBhorta would you mind sharing how much your water flooring cost per m?

Sorry couldn’t tell you, all part of bigger build cost. But a google suggests £100 psqm. I suspect add 25% to that as materials gone up.

It also frees up wall space. Which was helpful in our extension….lot of wall taken up with glass.

Electric was like a £100 per bathroom. But you wouldn’t do it in a big space.

The size of the space isn't an issue for cost. You need a thermostat and a 'thing' which are expensive, then mats which are cheap. So a small room needs a few cheap mats, a big room needs a lot of cheap mat, but it's still less than the thermostat and 'thing'.

If you see what I mean! Having a word missing moment!

@picklemewalnuts I understand what you're saying. But everywhere I've looked gives a per m price, which suggests the variable cost, as well as the fixed cost (the 'thing'), is significant?

[quote kitchenplanner]@Ozanj what kind of underfloor heating do you have, and what kind of house? We've an Edwardian house and we're getting engineered flooring on top. [/quote]
Wet underfloor. Had a registered plumber design and fit it while doing building work. Our house is a 90s build and we had to demolish the concrete floor to start again. We have tile on top

It cost me £3k to get wet underfloor with the pipes and thermostat and a new floor. It was cheaper than replacing the radiators downstairs which was the alternative.

We had it in the kitchen in our house and it was expensive. I would recommend doing it in smaller sections rather than one whole connected area, so you can pick and choose the area you heat (we had a little utility area which is connected and we felt it was a bit of a waste to heat that bit that wasn't used a lot) - if we were going to do it again that's how we would do it. We rent the house out now and ended up supplying our tenant with portable radiators so she doesn't have to spend so much money on the heating.

Wet underfloor heating in open plan kitchen/living/ dining room with porcelain tiles. Got design done separately online for £40, purchased equipment and the builder installed. Expensive and tricky to install. My builder laid pipes wrong and had to relay them. Tested the pressure over a couple of days to make sure no leaks. Works perfectly now tho. Radiators are more practical and far cheaper to install. Warm floors are nice but a pair of thick socks gives the same effect without the hassle.

Do they break often? I can't face the upheaval of pulling up the wooden flooring, should the underfloor heating break in the future. Though radiators don't tend to break, so perhaps underfloor heating is similarly robust?

Wen had underfloor heating (electric) installed when we had a bathroom makeover. The installer didn't know how to program it (it's supposed to be temperature controlled on a timer I think but it's very complicated) so it's never been used. Might be a good selling point though as (supposedly) they are quite cheap to run. I dread if anything goes wrong though cos porcelain tiles have been laid on top!!!

I live in a house that has underfloor heating, in the whole downstairs of the house, it is great. We rent but I know it is at least 30 years old, we have lived her 5 years and never had a problem, it is heated by our boiler.

Sorry to butt in on this thread, but I wondered if water UFH heating where your hot water is supplied via an unvented tank (rather than a gas boiler) would be just as expensive as electric UFH?

We are considering doing the same across the entire ground floor when we renovate our Edwardian house (a wet system because of the cost involved in running electric).

I’m also anxious about it breaking down and having to take up the floor, but then we didn’t have underfloor heating in our old house and had a leak under the floor which meant we had to take up the floor so I don't think either system is disaster proof.