Is underfloor heating worth it for me?

[1teabag0sugar]

Hi there everyone,

I have a 1920s house. Thinking about ufh in the extended kitchen. It's got high ceilings, maybe 2.5m. It's not finished yet, but we have a lot of glazing (glass ceilings for the ceiling of the side extension (5 metres by 80 cm), and 6 metres of bifold doors, and then one sky light of 1.5m squared).

I'm wondering whether we should do:

1. wet system no radiators
2. wet system with radiators (does ufh ever break down? do we need a back up? Can ufh heat a high ceiling old house very well?)
3. electric ufh just to have on maybe once in morning for an hour and two hours in evening to warm our feet (when we are in) and just radiators for main heating otherwise?

This is a conundrum I can't think through well! Please help!

Do you ever want to have rugs or carpet? I want carpet in my flat but can't due to ufh

There are carpets suitable for us with UFH. The range is not as big as standard carpets but it’s increasing

We have wet UFH in kitchen extension - it's a sloped roof with skylights, about 3m ceiling height at highest point. The UFH is brilliant, it keeps the room nice and warm - and warmer than the rest of the house which has ordinary radiators. Definitely haven't felt the need for extra radiators in the kitchen

I had electric UFH in my last house, it wasn't as effective and was much more expensive to run.

As @sweetpeasandtea advises, option 1, wet UFH all the way.

Design your wet system correctly (hard core, cement, 150mm insulation, UFH system in screed with floor finish (ideally tiles for heat transfer).

We have done this on our 1920s house and the joy is in the efficiency, comfort under foot and lack of radiators on the wall.

Any 'backup' radiators would also not work if the shut down was due to a boiler issue. 'backup' radiators are also dead legs and would be undersized in the event that there was an issue.

See my Instagram.

Wet ufh

Wet UFH with insulation and a slab will work better than radiators for heating the extension.

Try and get thermally efficient glazing (at least B rating).

It's a question of how you like to live.

I've had electric ufh, wet ufh and radiators. I am currently in the process of ripping out the wet ufh in my current house. I hate it. The only way it works is if you have it permanently on. But I don't want my temperature to be the same all the time. I want it to be warmer in the morning and before bedtime, and to cool down at night. Otherwise I get hot in the middle of the night, and in the middle of the day/evening when I'm moving around (or cooking). But because it relies on thermal mass, UFH takes forever and two days to get to temperature, so you have absolutely no flexibility.

What is the floor in your current kitchen. We are about to extend a 1920/30s property and would love underfloor heating. But the current floor is solid it would cost thousands to dig it up and put in underfloor heating. So it could be do you two different types of heating in the two different parts of the kitchen?

@Lonecatwithkitten I don't think you need to dig anything up you can just lay it on top of a solid floor. You get get quite low profile pipework now I think. You will have a bit of a height differential but not much.

OP we are having the same conundrum. I've ruled out electric because although lots of builders like it (cheap and easy to fit) it costs £££ to run.

I am doing the sums now to work out whether we can afford UFH throughout kitchen and utility or just utility which is new.

I would definitely do it if budget allows.

We’ve got electric UFH in a similar sounding kitchen (high ceilings, lots of glazing).

I can confirm that in terms of cost + heat effectiveness you’d be cheaper to burn £50 notes than turn it on.

I’d never have it again and personally I’d stick with an old fashioned radiator tbh.

We retrofitted wet UFH in the main downstairs areas in a 1950s house 13 years ago and took out all the radiators in those rooms. It's amazing. We have the UFH on low all the time - the slightly warm stone underfoot is lovely - and normal radiators elsewhere in the house so we have control over bedroom temps.

This is not my experience at all. I find wet UFH heats up the floor very quickly and and delivers a lovely even temperature. And you can't beat warm feet in the winter. I think the important thing is to specify correctly and insulate under the pipes efficiently.

@GatherlyGal even low profile it still takes space and therefore reduces your ceiling height so again not an option because of the loss of ceiling height.

But would you notice 18mm off your ceiling height?

Not in the 2 houses I've had it in, unfortunately.

I do like warm feet in the winter (where I have stone floors), but find electric much better for that. But not as an only heat source (combining it with a woodburner works fairly well).

Had this same conundrum in current house where we created a large kitchen/diner/living room; didn't want radiators on the walls and electric UFH spenny to run, wet UFH spenny to install - our solution was an air-to-air heat pump. It's super efficient and gives almost instant heat, can be put on a timer for chilly mornings and is mounted high up so no impact on furniture placement. The bonus is that it also cools so if you have a lot of glazing which boils the room in the summer it is ideal.

My neighbour regrets not putting it in when they extended their kitchen. It is a cold room and needs 4 radiators!

Wet underfloor heating ! Highly recommended - we were entirely skeptical and wasn’t going to go for it. But it meant we could free up the wall spaces which was most ideal for us so only did the new extension part. it works a treat and takes minutes to heat up and stays heated - I secretly wished we also did it on the rest of the ground floor as it has worked so well.

we have been told that electric UFH breaks easily and wet is the way to go

We put wet in our extension, installed it ourselves. Then I accidentally managed to pump air into it when we were installing the kitchen so it didn’t work for a bit. Luckily the OH had plumbed for a radiator as a back up so we put one in, then he fixed the ufh last month so now we have both and now it’s too bloody hot! Plus he put the rad in the wrong place for the sofa.. 🙄
anyway my point is, ufh is the bomb, go for it.

Ours takes an absolute age to cool down or warm up so we no longer bother adjusting the thermostat, we simply abandon the floor for our bedrooms or sometimes put the wood burner on. I have to have the kitchen turned off because it builds up so much that it's painful standing and cooking. Now it's doing the same thing under the dining room table, argh. I gather from another thread that ours under big stone tiles don't behave like other people's do, and probably my LL had her general builder install the system. If she had got an actual flooring contractor to do it, it would probably be fine (too much screed or something?)

My mum's was always fine and she built her own house and had pretty thick tiles too (but tiles, mine are more like flagstones).

So, my advice would be to get someone who really knows what they are doing. And for the love of cod, thermostats, especially when you basically live in a wind tunnel, should NOT go on external walls! O_O

Kitchen brand and name? Pretty please? X

We opted for rads in ours. Quoted almost 5k not including screed and etc for wet ufh. It's a luxury few of us can afford.

@Freshair1 Northpoint.

I planned the layout with DIY Kitchens and found Northpoint to be really comparable on price but for a bespoke kitchen. Highly recommend.