We have Warmafloor in kitchen and study
https://warmafloor.co.uk/
About 10 years old and never had any issue.
We are having an extension built onto our property and want to explore having underfloor heating fitted, specifically electric.
If anyone can offer some recommendations as to which manufacture they've had, tips or advice I'd be grateful.
The ground build spec is 16 m², block and beam construction then 100mm insulation topped off with 18mm chipboard.
Ta.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
We have Warmafloor in kitchen and study
https://warmafloor.co.uk/
About 10 years old and never had any issue.
Many people sell electric ufh mats. I think they are all much of a muchness. Even Screwfix sell it. The killer is the operating cost. Electricity costs roughly four times as much as gas per kwhr. Electric ufh does not tend to have the thermal inertia that wet (gas CH based) systems have, ie pipes through a slab. Therefore you don't get any benefit from running it on Economy 7 rates during the night (when leccie is on a par with gas per KWhr).
When I moved into my house, the previous owners had recently installed it and I was hit with c £800 month heating bills in the winter. I turned it all off, added larger radiators and better insulation to the rooms where they'd fitted it and my consumption quartered.
You could use it in a small room (eg ensuite or downstairs loo) just to take the chill off the floor for a couple of hours a day. Or wear slippers.
I'm looking to have electric underfloor heating as the sole heat supplier for the room. It's being built to a high standard of insulation so I think it's do-able to heat it only from the floor and I don't want radiators on the walls. From my own research it seems the electric matting is the most popular choice but there's a number of manufacturers
If anyone's got such a system in place I'm keen to hear from them.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Electric UFH is stupid and expensive for anything but the smallest of spaces.
Get a wet system and do it properly.
We had an extension built in 2006/7, it met the building regs at the time re levels of insulation. We specified electric underfloor heating, I believe it is a Devireg system and has wall mounted thermostatic controllers for the kitchen and bathroom. There have been no issues with it at all and the running costs are not as horrendous as expected, whilst we have an old small terraced house with mains gas, the other heating is night storage heaters which I plan to replace with more modern ones in the not too distant. Anyway the monthly cost for both gas and electric is £180 and we probably don't use the floors in their most economic mode, tending to leave then on and just adjusting temps occasionally. The extension acts as a "blanket" for the rear of the House too, but probably most importantly it's just so bloody nice to have a warm floor! Cheers, John B4
My issues with the systems is how they are sold (I work for a wood flooring company) so many customers buy them to replace radiators and in a large room you have no chance of maintaining heat without massive bills and also damaging your wooden floor. They were designed as a comfort feature to run alongside traditional heating but in recent years they are sold as a replacement to normal heating which they just are not. If this will be your only heating source I would be careful on what temperature you expect the room to be.
We use Klima underfloor heating (available from Screwfix) and so far it's been really good. It makes a massive difference to a tiled floor.
off topic but on your topic of storage heaters. i have the Quantum ones with the computer inside, i would upgrade to them as soon as you can if you do not get a gas boiler. so much more control over the old type and they hardly leak any heat when you don’t want them to and soon learn how much to top up overnight. the fan is quiet (no more obtrusive than a whump of a boiler firing and the pump) i saved on my bills too.
i get billed £535a year for power in my flat and i’m all electric on economy 7.
Not really, our clients tend too have wet systems over electric matting (our floors are fairly expensive so the builds tend to be expensive and they normally go for a full wet system). From a wooden floor point of view the heat source is not important the key is not going over 27 degrees below the board and keeping relative humidity between 40-60%, other things that can damage the floor are constant and rapid heat changes, ie off in summer than a cold weekend and ramp it up to max then turn it back off a few days after.
I’ve put warmup UFH in my bathrooms and it’s very good. I would recommend it.
https://www.warmup.co.uk
That depends on many factors. You can install electric for a few hundred quid whereas retro fit of a wet system is going to be many thousands. I suspect the payback would be quite a few years and lets not forget that renewables are all electricity so I suspect that at some point in the next twenty years electricity will become the cheaper fuel.
In my experience, it echos what has been said, electric UFH as a primary source of heat will be expensive. We have electric UFH in our main bathroom with a tiled floor, we have it on low to take the edge of the cold flooring and for that job it works perfectly, we do have a radiator in the room to as its just so much cheaper for the winter to properly heat the room. We are looking at putting wet UFH in our extension when that gets built which will be a primary source of heat.
Have a look at infrared under floor heating Matt’s,it doesn’t just warm the surface it warms the whole area and you can do with out radiators .
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I installed a loose cable kit in 3 of our rooms in my old house (biggest area being a large kitchen diner) under a stone floor and tiled floors. Bought from the underfloor heating company, ran it for 10 years with no problems(controls were great). Energy bills didn't seem excessive at £113 per month (gas and electric) for a large 4 bed house which was quite old and not very well insulated (used in the 2 bathrooms often but the kitchen/diner only used in winter as it got to warm otherwise). Just make sure you lay down insulation boards first and plan the cable run.
I have recently in the last few months installed electric UFH (150w version from eBay) in my loft, loft bathroom and some hallway. Approx 45 m2.
I do however also have gas central heating radiators in all these spaces, as it’s cheaper to heat the air volume with radiators from the gas fired radiator than to use electric UFH. I only installed the electric UFH for SWMBO and my 2 daughters as they always complain of cold feet!
Whilst testing it, I’ve found that I could keep the rooms warm enough (floor and air volume) with just the UFH on <4 hours per day (bearing in mind we are not in winter yet so that cost might go up if I were to be electric only. However my new loft is very well insulated with 100 to 150 mm of rigid insulation boards in all walls and roof spaces.
Separately I think the OP should consider what sort of roof/ insulation is used in your extension. The more insulated it is, there is a better chance that electric UFH can be your primary heating source. Also, I think the OP should consider if the extension contained within another room to the house, that is if there are no walls/ doors from existing house to new extension, your current heating from the house would also heat the extension.
P.s. you also need a insulated tile backer boards over your wooden floorboards prior laying the UFH. This is to help “reflect” the heat upwards, into the room and not down into the floor.
Hope this helps!
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It certainly has and thank you for the detailed comments.
The roof is of a very high level of insulation along with the new walls and d/g windows. There is an existing door accessing the extension (one that is double-glazed in fact) but the plan is to have that open as much as possible during daily use.
I'm currently favouring electric matting combined with a 4ie smart thermostat. In case we find this insufficient to heat the room I've now specified additional electrical sockets to supply one or two Wärme panels.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
We have electric matting from Screwfix in our en-suite takes the edge off the tiles but to heat the whole room I’d imagine it’d be expensive, in our extension we had a wet system installed due to running cost fears of electric (50m2 so a big space) and couldn’t be happier with it if there is anyway you can install a wet system I’d explore it, as you want it as your sole source of heating. A smart thermostat is that room is a must whichever option imo as it takes a while to warm the room but once up to temp it’s a much nicer heat than radiators if I could afford it the whole house would be underfloor heating it’s that much nicer.
Useful thread as I'm just about to install this in my kitchen, would prefer underfloor water heating but too much faff routing hot water so electric is easiest. Will be secondary heating, just nice to walk on warm stone instead of cold in Winter
I think it’s a bit ambitious to rely on underfloor heating as the sole source of heat in a room, clearly it could turn out to be an expensive option.
As for the ‘comfort’ factor, I don’t really get that. Wear slippers, or fit carpets if it’s a problem. The current obsession with hard floors seems odd to me, I much prefer carpets! My kitchen floor’s laminate and it is a bit cold in winter, but not to an extent that bothers me. Wifey insisted on tiled flooring in the en suite bathroom, that’s a bit cold, but I don’t hang around in there too long so it isn’t a problem.
We stayed in a holiday let in Northumberland in late Autumn. The two story barn conversion was only heated by underfloor (wet I assume). We never did get it to the right temperature. Whatever you set the stats to it was either too hot or too cold and then took a long time to change.
It might be worth considering a wet system combined with a dry screedboard floating floor (something like https://www.fermacell.co.uk/en/floor...eating-overlay ). I have used this commercially in the past (in schools) and it gives the cost-in-use advantages of a wet underfloor heating system without the need for a deep build-up or wet screeding on top of your floor structure. The lighter weight of the overall construction also improves reaction times and reduces temperature lag.