Underfloor heating yay or nay?

[pepinanalilyplant]

Looking at new house to move to and have found one we love. It has downstairs underfloor heating which DH is completely against based on one bad past experience.

Anyone with underfloor heating how has it been over the years? Any issues?

Thank you.

Have had it in our kitchen for the last 7 years. No issues at all and love it.

Definite yay

Yes!

@TallNeckedGiraffe thank you! I feel I need more numbers to convince DH 😢.

We had it installed downstairs last year and we love it! Brought down the gas bill too.

Is it electric or wet underfloor heating your DH has problems with?

Any issues with reinstallation etc? There were a few minor cracks on the kitchen floor which DH is convinced is due to tiles been removed for underfloor heating issues.

Is it electric or wet UFH? I’be had wet UFH for both upstairs and downstairs in my house for the past 11 years. I’d never go back to radiators tbh.

@CuteOrangeElephant just all underfloor heating based on one incident he had almost 15 years ago. I presume electric would be better?

We have wet, upstairs too., absolutely love it

Uses much more energy than radiators doesn't it? Watch out for your bills

Electric can use a ton of energy and be hugely expensive.

Wet/gas can leak.

Quality of install is important, as if it has been installed with a good thermal barrier it will be a lot better. Poor thermal isolation from below and you end up heating the ground.

So, in summary, there is underfloor heating and there is underfloor heating.

@comoatoupeira
No ours certainly doesn’t.

We have electric underfloor heating downstairs.

It's well insulated underneath with good quality tiles on top which seem to hold the heat well. The key is, not to let the floor go completely cold.
Generally it's not that much more expensive than when we had radiators. We pay a lot less for gas (it's only hot water, DC rooms and bathroom on a timer) and a bit more for electricity....
Granted, it would probably be a lot more expensive if we tried to heat the house above 18°C.
In the long term, I think the electric heating will pay off, we need to move away from fossil fuel and look at alternatives like wind turbines & solar panels. (I know, these come with their own problems.)

Ours uses less.

We've got it in our bathroom and it's lovely (our cats adore it!). However it was fitted by someone who didn't know what they were doing so there are cold patches which are horrible!

We switched ours off as it was so expensive to run and not terribly effective or controllable. Gradually removing it as floors are replaced. It is electric and was installed at least 13 years ago.

Ours is wet/gas and is really good. Keeps the rooms warm and is very economical. It has shedloads of insulation underneath. It's 5 years old now.

Electric is very expensive to run because energy from electricity costs four or five times as much as energy from gas. AIUI more electric ones have been switched off than are still in use.

No objection to Wet provided it is skilfully installed and tested for leaks before bring covered up.

If buried in concrete, any faults found later would be shockingly disruptive and expensive to repair.

electric in ourkitchen- costs a bomb so we hardly have it on

Would you repair wet ufh? I always had it in my head as the worst case scenario that if it really didn't work, we would switch it off and just install radiators instead. That would be less disruptive and less expensive, right?

We’ve got wet underfloor heating in extension, it’s brilliant and doesn’t cost much to run. We have electric in the bathroom, 5 years old and a bit shit, the controllers have broken so one bathroom it’s on randomly the other one not at all.

Wet is what you need for large areas because it’s cheaper to run. Our whole downstairs is wet UFH, we have radiators upstairs but electric jets under the tiles in the upstairs bathrooms - they are more expensive to run but the rooms are small so it’s ok.

I've got wet UFH, run from a heat pump, in a new build. It's lovely and not expensive to run at all.

I love it

We have it buried in limecrete, I'm pleased very pleased with it but do have the fear of it going wrong 😕