As a long term DIYer but with no experience of UFH, I used Variotherm from UFH1. It's a smaller bore pipe but laid on 100mm centres and in 18mm cement fibre board. On a level base. I won't deny its hard work laying the pipe but the plumber who connected it to the manifold (I thought I'd get a professional for that!) commented on the high quality of the pipe. LVT was laid floating on top. The end result has exceeded our expectations. The floor never gets hotter than 26degC, it's uniformly warm because the pipework is not laid in polystyrene and there is an element of thermal mass in the CFB. Input temperature is about 40degC. I can control through a phone app if necessary. I can thoroughly recommend this system.
In my old flat I insulated the kitchen and bathroom floor with 60mm of XPS insulation and laid down electric underfloor heating. It was a nice solution to two rooms that had previously only had pull cord 2kW heaters. The difference was amazing. One advantage of electric is that it is an even heat along the cable as opposed to pipes that get cooler nearer the end of the run.
@@alexevans1981 A little while from cold. It was a little while ago I can't remember how long exactly. When in use it was kept constantly on and switched between a high and low temperature.
@@QnA22 Actually it wasn't. I also insulated the main room floor too, of course, and put a less powerful 1.3kW Fischer heater in there compared to the 2.5kW storage heater that I had before. Before I had to supplement that storage heater with a 2.5kW free standing electric heater as the storage heater was exhausted by 5pm in winter and the bathroom and kitchen molded up horribly.
Good advice Roger, thanks. Interesting thinking about the way radiators have to fill a room with heat rather than underfloor pipes heating the floor. 👍👍
Did my own installation 15 years ago - on the cheap. Covered the entire ground floor ( concrete ) with 2 inch extruded polystyrene panels ( seconds ) as a floating floor glued together with polyurethane adhesive. Pipe runs were drawn out to and from the manifold and were simply routed out. Very easy to change spacing where you wanted more heat , standing areas in the kitchen etc. Covered in both tiles ( over cement board ) and solid oak t&g flooring - new skirtings fitted and not one problem since. We have a large conservatory open plan to the rest of the house and it is comfortable all year round except on the very coldest days, it is double glazed with argon filled metallised glazing throughout, however I fitted a radiator to back up the output from the underfloor, which couldn't quite cope with the heat loss on cold days, and fitted insulated blinds to the roof glazing . I did have doubts about the oak flooring ( the missus picked it ) due to the thickness and the possibility of shrinkage , it was kiln dried so no movement. There is some inertia in the warm up time due to the thickness, but once up and running all ok. Using the plain panels made fitting a breeze , and routing out pipe runs made coping with the twists and turns of a 1930's build a lot easier than proprietary systems.
@@Tonisuperfly routed the pipe runs directly into the extruded polystyrene - solid oak t&g laid throughout ground floor on the insulation - effectively a floating floor with a 10mm expansion gap all round and new skirtings fitted . In the kitchen and conservatory cement board was stuck down on the insulation then tiled - this matched the thickness of the finished wood floor. I used John Guest barrier pipe and a Watts manifold with a fully modulating pump - each room served by its own circuit. Fitted fourteen years ago with no problems at all - I would do the same again without question. The only downside is a slight loss of headroom, no problem unless you're more than 6'4" .
What advice would you have for someone who already has concrete floors, do you have experience with "overlay" wet systems? I think I've seen some like the tray system you showed.
Good video imo Roger, but I'm gonna quibble with you on the radiation vs convection claim a little. Underfloor uses both, same with Rads although the % is different. Rads mainly use convection (despite the name) & yes, Underfloor would be far more radiant heat. It still heats the air though and air convects. Cold air will come in from the sides to fill the space as the lighter hoter air rises, although this is far less apparent than with a Rad as you rightly say. Far those ultra-high ceilings, you could go for radiant panels (electric IR) which rely on radiation almost entirely and do heat objects/people directly. The cost to run though is expensive and only high 90s efficiency possible. So there's always trade offs to be made.
@@markthomas919 and if you get the effeciency high enough & therefore the flow temp low enough, the "radiator" is even cool enough to walk on with bare feet (over flooring). Very nice .
Great video again Roger 👍 I would love to hear your thoughts and recommendations on the different flooring options you can have on top of underfloor heating
More than the flooring it's the underlay choice with most of them too. In my extension I went with tiled flooring downstairs over the screened wet underfloor heating. Used ditra mat which cut down on thermal transfer a bit but the best option and feels lovely underfoot. Have uf heating upstairs too and used laminate over that green fiber board underlay and that stuff like most underlay is primarily designed to not lose heat through it so is a pain with uf heating. Maybe lvt would have been better. Did look at other underlay but many of them were even worse for blocking thermal conductivity.
Great video and thanks for all your videos, I’m a big fan of the channel. Only thing I would disagree with is that underfloor heating is radiative heating. You need things very hot for that to work, like an open fire or log burner. The room will heat from convection (and your toes from conduction!), but compared to a normal radiator, the whole floor has hot air rising from it. It’s like the whole room is the bit above a radiator. Your bang on though that for high ceilinged rooms it’s the way ahead. Cheers
Hi Chris I have this argument all the time because people can't understand that hot air only rises because it is displaced by colder air which is heavier. Nobody in the heating industry disagrees that underfloor heating is radiant heat. The American's describe these systems as radiant hydronic heating. I will carry out a demonstration with a smoke pellet to prove the point. There is no convection.
So Chris@@SkillBuilder when you heat the water in the bottom of the saucepan (i.e., "under pot heating") there is no colder water above this hot water to slide down the side (or exploit the slightest eddy) and displace the warmer water? Like - is this saying why you cannot heat water in a saucepan? As I see it, when we heat the floor it will heat the air just above the floor and this hotter air will rise (do the test yourself) because tiny air currents in the room allow the colder air to slide in and displace it. When we heat the floor our feet next to the floor feel the direct heat which feels good on a cold day in a cold room. There is also a mild radiant heat coming from a heated floor which might be detectable in an otherwise very cold room. How warm the room gets depends on how much heat is put into it versus how much is lost. Basically all heating systems (with equal capacity) will get the same result if the room air is mixed (e.g., ceiling fan) but it's usually better to heat from the bottom. Heating from the top leaves the hot air high with no reason to come lower. Radiators on the side tend to have all their warmed air go up the wall and stay at the top of the room. Again lots of heating systems will work better if the air is gently mixed. The convention talk is not your best effort. Please stay on point with the facts - under floor heating can be excellent, people who have a decent system will say so. Please do not invent a new branch of physics as an "explanation".
This video has answered many of my questions about underfloor heating. My only criticism would be to say that if we are going to stop burning stuff to keep warm, then electric is the only way to go (from 'renewables' i.e. wind and solar).
Heatpump plus wet underfloor heating is optimal. Don't have to heat to as high temps, keep the heat topped up throughout the day running through the pipes.
Many thanks for this info Roger, I live in an electrical only house but have taken advice on an electric boiler specifically for wet underfloor heating. As we don't have central heating and are poorly insulated, is this something you would consider, or is insulation the priority? Also, have you any experience with aerogel insulation types? These are returning u values of 0.015 (supposedly)!
Amazing video! Can you put it under a conservatory? And I have laminate flooring and I have 4sq metre in my kitchen and also in a toilet cubicle, is ripping off the floor a lot of work and is it worth it? I live in a very miniature house with a conservatory and roof extension, 900sqm but it’s got 3 floors and is freezing and I’ve heard underfloor heating can heat the whole house even if only on the ground floor Thanks
it would both convect and radiate heat as would any hot object on earth. The hot floor will heat the air in contact with it and that air will convect throughout the room. The only time you would consider something to radiate heat would be IR lamps and heaters in which the Infra Red energy is radiated via reflectors and minimizes any heat to the objects adjacent to them
I say this because the main use of energy in this system would be by thermal conductivity and convection, not radiation (at a guess). But IR lamps and heaters main use of energy would be radiation or at least significantly more.
I am not going to go into the science because others do it better but underfloor heating is radiated heat. It can't convect because hot air is only pushed up by heavier cold air displacing it. The floor is heated so the cold air cannot displace the hot air. You can test it with smoke pellets. I have done this in barns with UFH and the smoke just drift around the floor.
@@SkillBuilderyour information is wrong, the floor is heated just like a pan on a stove is heated, the floor then heats the air in proximity to it, which then rises as the air above it is cooler. The heat coming off the floor isnt the same amount as from 1cm as it would be 1m away, meaning there is a heating differential across the room, with less heating as you go further away, meaning colder air is always above.
I’m buying a house that has it but they have installed radiators as they told me as soon as the boiler turned off everywhere just went cold instantly, but I was always under the impression it was better like your video said 🤷🏼♂️
Roger mentions how there is no thermal mass with the low profile systems, the benefit being they're very responsive and heat up quick. However, the con being there is no thermal mass! So it cools down very quickly too!
Possibly they were trying to.run underfloor heating like radiators and only having it on a couple of hours a day. With the full depth wet system in a thermal mass its better to leave it on constantly aiming to keep the various zones at a prescribed temperature. The pump and manifold is mostly recirculating the same water with the boiler boosting a bit of extra heat as needed. Aim for min 16 overnight and 19 in the day. No need for radiators.
Hi Roger, we have a pipe + tray installation fitted in 2005. The original owners laid a teracotta-coloured ceramic tile floor over the heating pipework and twenty years later the whole ground floor now looks a bit like an in Italian restaurant! If we were to replace the floor is it best to lift the ceramic tiles or could we simply lay new tiles over the top? The other option would be to have a polished concrete floor poured on top of the tiles or an epoxy floor installed over the tiles -I am keen to avoid destroyng the floor/ damage the heating pipes by removing the ceramic tiles, but I don't know if adding an extra layer of tiles/flooring over the existing tiles will reduce the effectiveness of the underfloor heating.
HI Matt It is a good idea to lay the tiles over the tiles. Hopefully you can avoid the joints coninciding. I have done the micro cement flooring before that is trowelled down. I did it roughly 3 years ago and it is still fine and shows no signs of cracking. If you can find someone to do you a resin floor that is polished I think it would look great. As for the heating, it will do no harm at all. The thermal mass is increased so it takes a little longer to come up to temperature but it also takes longer to lose heat so think of it as a storage radiator. So the good news is you can leave it all in place.
Another advantage is that you can use other types of heating (heat pumps/solar heat) that cant be used with regular radiators very well. Using a low temperature can double the production of solar heat - even with cheaper solar panels.
At 2.25 there’s a mix of systems presumably due to the click being more flexible on pipe location. Does this create an issue since the click is designed for screed? How did you get round this and what was the final finished flooring?
I enjoy your videos Roger and there's some good tips in here but the title is misleading as the video doesn't actually run through the different solutions available!
I once had a ‘heating engineer’ tell me that “you can’t just throw a bunch of pipe in the floor at 150mm centres……” I’d reason that if I did use that approach I’d still be installing better heating systems than many of those guys have done for decades of installing undersized radiator systems and charging an absolute premium for the privilege!
Hi Roger, you may recall I have asked this question before, would there be any mileage in placing either a 6mm or 12mm if you have the headroom, using a insulated tile backer board, ie, elements board? thanks in advance Paul
Great videos. How much vertical height is required for low profile water system please? What options would I have with an existing concrete slab sub-floor please?
It’s a shame the shister building companies continue to fit conventional radiators rather than underfloor. Building regs need to change to force them to fit whenever possible
We have been in this situation before. The collapse of the housing market in 2008 was indeed a disaster but remediation all of the poor workmanship from that boom kept genuine tradesmen going, not fully afloat but going.
Can I, as I convert the house to underfloor do this room by room, simply cut the copper radiator pipes accordingly and re connect the radiator pipes to the low rise underfloor system below the floor level ?
@@SkillBuilder So an additional 3 way thermostatically controlled valve would be needed to control the individual room temperature and enable a 'bypass' in the pipe work so the rest of the system to would flow appropriately. Is that right please ?
@@joncoxhead4624 UFH needs a low flow temperature regardless of room temperature so a thermostatic valve won't help, if the room was cold the thermostatic valve would open feeding boiler level high flow temperature water around the system. Unless you can run your entire heating system at the same temperature that the UFH needs to run at so the boiler target temperature can be manually turned down or you can find a water temperature blending valve to mount in the floor of each room to mix the flow temperature down to the correct level, you'd end up with a low efficiency system with high flow temperatures that risks damaging the floor. Ideally UFH installs need to take things a step further than what this video covers as most condensing boilers won't simply run at a lower flow temperature with the introduction of one of these UFH systems unless the rest of the heating system and boiler controls are all designed to do that whilst still being able to provide hotter water when required for the rad circuit and hot water cylinder. These off the shelf retrofit UFH solutions generally have a mechanical mixing valve on the UFH manifold to mix water down to a temperatures suitable for the floor whilst the boiler itself is still set statically to run at a high 60c or so to service the rads and water cylinder, meaning there's no real efficiency gains. It's a bit more expensive but a better way to do it is to use more advanced boiler controls to manage electronic mixing valves for each heating circuit along with weather or load compensation to minimise the boiler output dynamically. This way the UFH circuit temperature is blended down before the water reaches the UFH manifold that doesn't then require it's own fixed mechanical mixing valve. Running this way does actually give increased efficiency the controls will reduce the boiler flow temperatures to the minimum based on what the house actually requires. When the weather is cold the flow will be warmer and as it becomes milder, the UFH circuit flow temperature is reduced so the house doesn't get too warm, increasing efficiency further and allowing it to run for a lot longer at a lower temperature/output keeping room temperatures very consistent. With a basic mechanical mixing valve on the manifold it doesn't vary unless you continually adjust it by hand meaning you have a fixed flow temperature to the UFH. This has to be set at a temperature to cope with the coldest weather meaning it will be adding too much heat to the house in milder weather which then requires a lot more active room thermostat control turning UFH loops on and off throughout the day, which again will effect overall efficiency. Urban Plumbers has done a couple of good videos on these more advanced setups in the past few months.
I live in a (very) hot part of the world and I'm wondering if I can use this system effectively to also cool my house? Any thoughts on this would be really welcome!
You can with most air/water heatpumps! They often have a 4way valve to switch between cooling and heating mode. However, you need to consider a few things. You can't cool the floor below dewpoint because moisture from the air will condensate on your floor. Hence, effectiveness depends on how hot and humid it gets at your location. Second issue is heat rises, so underfloor cooling isn't as effective in absorbing the heat because colder air tends to stay low. But you also have the same sort of sytem for walls. So instead of waterpipes running inside your floor, you have them in your walls. These are much more effective at cooling because convection. Also a great solution when you have wooden floors and underfloor heating isn't an option. Drilling in your walls with this system takes some more precautions tho.
Heatpump of some kind. Anything that involves direct conversion of electricity to heat is already basically 100% efficient, so whether its a space heater, electric radiator, oil-filled radiator, underfloor heating, it doesn't matter, all are equal. Only heatpumps can output more energy as heat compared to their input energy in electricity as it moves existing heat around, such as geothermal or air heat exchange from outside.
Inspired by your videos with heat geek etc I have opted for underfloor heating set in a new screed sourced by two heat pumps . In Two rooms I am wantng to use engineered wood the remainder are porcelain . Do you have any thoughts as to which company makes the best engineered wood floor , I’m assuming 14-15 would be preferable for heat transfer as opposed to 20mm , the strength of construction under the wear level being crucial . There are so many companies all of which claim the suitability of floor for underfloor . Hoping you may have experience that may guide me . Thanks .
Junkers is probably the best wood flooring but I have used oak floor with a plywood back and it works fine. Avoid floor that glues together as it will come apart. The wear layer on wood floor is measurable so you can easily choose a thicker wear layer. Avoiding outdoor shoes is a good idea and I always choose oiled flooring rather than varnished. You can feed an oiled floor year after year to improve it. If you go for varnish and an area around a door wears, you will have to sand and revarnish the whole floor to get it to match. With an oiled floor you just rub is over lightly with a fine abrasive to even out the wear and then apply more oil and hard wax.
From my research for larger areas electric appears lower profile, costs slightly less to install but appears less powerful in heat transfer and more costly to run, even compared to a 1993 vintage lpg boiler!!
The people screening our floor we're useless, lumpy and bumpy and that was just the lino (which was the incorrect one too)! After relocating we'd used them quite a bit, until one fine day they'd sold what we were going to buy. I asked for the measurements to take with me and he refused, haven't shopped there since.
We also went with electric for our kitchen extension, we haven't got mains gas in our village and when the house was local authority they installed an electric boiler. If we went wet then the boiler needed changing as it wouldn't of been up to the job so we just went with electric. If you have a similar system to us then I can say it works out cheaper to heat the ground floor, we noticed a massive difference when the main heating is switched on when looking at our smart meter display.
If a central heating system on gas with high efficiency works for longer ...all the parts will wear out much faster.Even the money saved on heating bill will be spent at some time on servicing the system....
As a long term DIYer but with no experience of UFH, I used Variotherm from UFH1. It's a smaller bore pipe but laid on 100mm centres and in 18mm cement fibre board. On a level base. I won't deny its hard work laying the pipe but the plumber who connected it to the manifold (I thought I'd get a professional for that!) commented on the high quality of the pipe. LVT was laid floating on top. The end result has exceeded our expectations. The floor never gets hotter than 26degC, it's uniformly warm because the pipework is not laid in polystyrene and there is an element of thermal mass in the CFB. Input temperature is about 40degC. I can control through a phone app if necessary. I can thoroughly recommend this system.
I'd love that in my house but it's only a pipe dream 🙄
😂😂
Your dream radiates across the skill builder community 👍
If you have the money it can be solved
In my old flat I insulated the kitchen and bathroom floor with 60mm of XPS insulation and laid down electric underfloor heating. It was a nice solution to two rooms that had previously only had pull cord 2kW heaters. The difference was amazing.
One advantage of electric is that it is an even heat along the cable as opposed to pipes that get cooler nearer the end of the run.
How long to heat up?
@@alexevans1981 A little while from cold. It was a little while ago I can't remember how long exactly. When in use it was kept constantly on and switched between a high and low temperature.
Isn't the disadvantage a much higher energy bill? Or do you only use it an hour or so a day?
@@QnA22 Actually it wasn't. I also insulated the main room floor too, of course, and put a less powerful 1.3kW Fischer heater in there compared to the 2.5kW storage heater that I had before. Before I had to supplement that storage heater with a 2.5kW free standing electric heater as the storage heater was exhausted by 5pm in winter and the bathroom and kitchen molded up horribly.
Clear and concise. Thanks Roger 👍
Good advice Roger, thanks. Interesting thinking about the way radiators have to fill a room with heat rather than underfloor pipes heating the floor. 👍👍
Thanks Roger. Definitely going to investigate further. Kind regards Stu
Did my own installation 15 years ago - on the cheap. Covered the entire ground floor ( concrete ) with 2 inch extruded polystyrene panels ( seconds ) as a floating floor glued together with polyurethane adhesive.
Pipe runs were drawn out to and from the manifold and were simply routed out. Very easy to change spacing where you wanted more heat , standing areas in the kitchen etc.
Covered in both tiles ( over cement board ) and solid oak t&g flooring - new skirtings fitted and not one problem since. We have a large conservatory open plan to the rest of the house and it is comfortable all year round except on the very coldest days, it is double glazed with argon filled metallised glazing throughout, however I fitted a radiator to back up the output from the underfloor, which couldn't quite cope with the heat loss on cold days, and fitted insulated blinds to the roof glazing .
I did have doubts about the oak flooring ( the missus picked it ) due to the thickness and the possibility of shrinkage , it was kiln dried so no movement. There is some inertia in the warm up time due to the thickness, but once up and running all ok.
Using the plain panels made fitting a breeze , and routing out pipe runs made coping with the twists and turns of a 1930's build a lot easier than proprietary systems.
So you just routed out the pipe runs directly in the insulation? Then tiled over the top?
@@Tonisuperfly routed the pipe runs directly into the extruded polystyrene - solid oak t&g laid throughout ground floor on the insulation - effectively a floating floor with a 10mm expansion gap all round and new skirtings fitted . In the kitchen and conservatory cement board was stuck down on the insulation then tiled - this matched the thickness of the finished wood floor.
I used John Guest barrier pipe and a Watts manifold with a fully modulating pump - each room served by its own circuit.
Fitted fourteen years ago with no problems at all - I would do the same again without question. The only downside is a slight loss of headroom, no problem unless you're more than 6'4" .
@@fraserhardmetal7143 thank you!
@@Tonisuperfly you're welcome !
What advice would you have for someone who already has concrete floors, do you have experience with "overlay" wet systems? I think I've seen some like the tray system you showed.
Great advice My favourite you tube channel by far. Thanks.
Wow, thanks!
Absolute quality video RB! Thank you.
Like the thought of under floor heating, great video Roger.
Good video imo Roger, but I'm gonna quibble with you on the radiation vs convection claim a little. Underfloor uses both, same with Rads although the % is different. Rads mainly use convection (despite the name) & yes, Underfloor would be far more radiant heat. It still heats the air though and air convects. Cold air will come in from the sides to fill the space as the lighter hoter air rises, although this is far less apparent than with a Rad as you rightly say. Far those ultra-high ceilings, you could go for radiant panels (electric IR) which rely on radiation almost entirely and do heat objects/people directly. The cost to run though is expensive and only high 90s efficiency possible. So there's always trade offs to be made.
Agree, however with underfloor the ’radiator' is much closer to the human in a large room! Warm feet=warm heart!!😁
@@markthomas919 and if you get the effeciency high enough & therefore the flow temp low enough, the "radiator" is even cool enough to walk on with bare feet (over flooring). Very nice .
Great video again Roger 👍 I would love to hear your thoughts and recommendations on the different flooring options you can have on top of underfloor heating
Noted
More than the flooring it's the underlay choice with most of them too. In my extension I went with tiled flooring downstairs over the screened wet underfloor heating. Used ditra mat which cut down on thermal transfer a bit but the best option and feels lovely underfoot.
Have uf heating upstairs too and used laminate over that green fiber board underlay and that stuff like most underlay is primarily designed to not lose heat through it so is a pain with uf heating. Maybe lvt would have been better. Did look at other underlay but many of them were even worse for blocking thermal conductivity.
Great video and thanks for all your videos, I’m a big fan of the channel.
Only thing I would disagree with is that underfloor heating is radiative heating. You need things very hot for that to work, like an open fire or log burner.
The room will heat from convection (and your toes from conduction!), but compared to a normal radiator, the whole floor has hot air rising from it. It’s like the whole room is the bit above a radiator. Your bang on though that for high ceilinged rooms it’s the way ahead.
Cheers
Hi Chris
I have this argument all the time because people can't understand that hot air only rises because it is displaced by colder air which is heavier. Nobody in the heating industry disagrees that underfloor heating is radiant heat.
The American's describe these systems as radiant hydronic heating.
I will carry out a demonstration with a smoke pellet to prove the point. There is no convection.
Sorry, less diplomatic then Roger, you need to revisit some science classes. Bluntly, you're wrong.
Radiators 70% convection 30 % radiant
UFH 60% radiant 40% convection
Exactly this! UFH is MORE radiative than radiators...
So Chris@@SkillBuilder when you heat the water in the bottom of the saucepan (i.e., "under pot heating") there is no colder water above this hot water to slide down the side (or exploit the slightest eddy) and displace the warmer water? Like - is this saying why you cannot heat water in a saucepan?
As I see it, when we heat the floor it will heat the air just above the floor and this hotter air will rise (do the test yourself) because tiny air currents in the room allow the colder air to slide in and displace it. When we heat the floor our feet next to the floor feel the direct heat which feels good on a cold day in a cold room. There is also a mild radiant heat coming from a heated floor which might be detectable in an otherwise very cold room. How warm the room gets depends on how much heat is put into it versus how much is lost.
Basically all heating systems (with equal capacity) will get the same result if the room air is mixed (e.g., ceiling fan) but it's usually better to heat from the bottom. Heating from the top leaves the hot air high with no reason to come lower. Radiators on the side tend to have all their warmed air go up the wall and stay at the top of the room. Again lots of heating systems will work better if the air is gently mixed.
The convention talk is not your best effort. Please stay on point with the facts - under floor heating can be excellent, people who have a decent system will say so. Please do not invent a new branch of physics as an "explanation".
This video has answered many of my questions about underfloor heating. My only criticism would be to say that if we are going to stop burning stuff to keep warm, then electric is the only way to go (from 'renewables' i.e. wind and solar).
Heatpumps are electric...
Heatpump plus wet underfloor heating is optimal. Don't have to heat to as high temps, keep the heat topped up throughout the day running through the pipes.
Many thanks for this info Roger, I live in an electrical only house but have taken advice on an electric boiler specifically for wet underfloor heating. As we don't have central heating and are poorly insulated, is this something you would consider, or is insulation the priority? Also, have you any experience with aerogel insulation types? These are returning u values of 0.015 (supposedly)!
Amazing video! Can you put it under a conservatory? And I have laminate flooring and I have 4sq metre in my kitchen and also in a toilet cubicle, is ripping off the floor a lot of work and is it worth it? I live in a very miniature house with a conservatory and roof extension, 900sqm but it’s got 3 floors and is freezing and I’ve heard underfloor heating can heat the whole house even if only on the ground floor Thanks
Can you retrofit underfloor heating, in a kitchen for example?
it would both convect and radiate heat as would any hot object on earth. The hot floor will heat the air in contact with it and that air will convect throughout the room. The only time you would consider something to radiate heat would be IR lamps and heaters in which the Infra Red energy is radiated via reflectors and minimizes any heat to the objects adjacent to them
I say this because the main use of energy in this system would be by thermal conductivity and convection, not radiation (at a guess). But IR lamps and heaters main use of energy would be radiation or at least significantly more.
I am not going to go into the science because others do it better but underfloor heating is radiated heat.
It can't convect because hot air is only pushed up by heavier cold air displacing it. The floor is heated so the cold air cannot displace the hot air. You can test it with smoke pellets. I have done this in barns with UFH and the smoke just drift around the floor.
Very interesting, thanks mate!
@@SkillBuilderyour information is wrong, the floor is heated just like a pan on a stove is heated, the floor then heats the air in proximity to it, which then rises as the air above it is cooler. The heat coming off the floor isnt the same amount as from 1cm as it would be 1m away, meaning there is a heating differential across the room, with less heating as you go further away, meaning colder air is always above.
I’m buying a house that has it but they have installed radiators as they told me as soon as the boiler turned off everywhere just went cold instantly, but I was always under the impression it was better like your video said 🤷🏼♂️
Roger mentions how there is no thermal mass with the low profile systems, the benefit being they're very responsive and heat up quick. However, the con being there is no thermal mass! So it cools down very quickly too!
Possibly they were trying to.run underfloor heating like radiators and only having it on a couple of hours a day. With the full depth wet system in a thermal mass its better to leave it on constantly aiming to keep the various zones at a prescribed temperature. The pump and manifold is mostly recirculating the same water with the boiler boosting a bit of extra heat as needed. Aim for min 16 overnight and 19 in the day. No need for radiators.
Hi Roger, we have a pipe + tray installation fitted in 2005. The original owners laid a teracotta-coloured ceramic tile floor over the heating pipework and twenty years later the whole ground floor now looks a bit like an in Italian restaurant! If we were to replace the floor is it best to lift the ceramic tiles or could we simply lay new tiles over the top? The other option would be to have a polished concrete floor poured on top of the tiles or an epoxy floor installed over the tiles -I am keen to avoid destroyng the floor/ damage the heating pipes by removing the ceramic tiles, but I don't know if adding an extra layer of tiles/flooring over the existing tiles will reduce the effectiveness of the underfloor heating.
HI Matt
It is a good idea to lay the tiles over the tiles. Hopefully you can avoid the joints coninciding. I have done the micro cement flooring before that is trowelled down. I did it roughly 3 years ago and it is still fine and shows no signs of cracking. If you can find someone to do you a resin floor that is polished I think it would look great.
As for the heating, it will do no harm at all. The thermal mass is increased so it takes a little longer to come up to temperature but it also takes longer to lose heat so think of it as a storage radiator.
So the good news is you can leave it all in place.
Graet job, man. Hopefully, ppl will upgrade their houses to more comfortable and efficient .
Good video! I would love it if the store starts selling international! Wish you guys the best from sweden!✌️
Another advantage is that you can use other types of heating (heat pumps/solar heat) that cant be used with regular radiators very well. Using a low temperature can double the production of solar heat - even with cheaper solar panels.
Which area do you install heating floor system?
At 2.25 there’s a mix of systems presumably due to the click being more flexible on pipe location. Does this create an issue since the click is designed for screed? How did you get round this and what was the final finished flooring?
I enjoy your videos Roger and there's some good tips in here but the title is misleading as the video doesn't actually run through the different solutions available!
Would you also level a wood floor before laying down insulation panels?
yes it is worth combing through a thin bed of adhesive
Can this be used to replace a radiator in a utility room?
I once had a ‘heating engineer’ tell me that “you can’t just throw a bunch of pipe in the floor at 150mm centres……” I’d reason that if I did use that approach I’d still be installing better heating systems than many of those guys have done for decades of installing undersized radiator systems and charging an absolute premium for the privilege!
Hi Roger, you may recall I have asked this question before, would there be any mileage in placing either a 6mm or 12mm if you have the headroom, using a insulated tile backer board, ie, elements board? thanks in advance Paul
Great videos. How much vertical height is required for low profile water system please? What options would I have with an existing concrete slab sub-floor please?
It’s a shame the shister building companies continue to fit conventional radiators rather than underfloor. Building regs need to change to force them to fit whenever possible
With how new builds are thrown up… The remedial work of all the badly installed systems would be a nightmare.
We have been in this situation before. The collapse of the housing market in 2008 was indeed a disaster but remediation all of the poor workmanship from that boom kept genuine tradesmen going, not fully afloat but going.
I've had an anhydrate screed (calcium) layed over wet ufh ontop of 100mm insulation and it heats my room running 30deg flow rate on a timed on and off
How do you deal with damp 2.5 feet up a inside wall ? not above not below, just in the middle of the wall ?
Nice 👌
Can I, as I convert the house to underfloor do this room by room, simply cut the copper radiator pipes accordingly and re connect the radiator pipes to the low rise underfloor system below the floor level ?
you can but it will only be controlled by the boiler stat so the pipes may be too hot
@@SkillBuilder So an additional 3 way thermostatically controlled valve would be needed to control the individual room temperature and enable a 'bypass' in the pipe work so the rest of the system to would flow appropriately. Is that right please ?
@@joncoxhead4624 UFH needs a low flow temperature regardless of room temperature so a thermostatic valve won't help, if the room was cold the thermostatic valve would open feeding boiler level high flow temperature water around the system. Unless you can run your entire heating system at the same temperature that the UFH needs to run at so the boiler target temperature can be manually turned down or you can find a water temperature blending valve to mount in the floor of each room to mix the flow temperature down to the correct level, you'd end up with a low efficiency system with high flow temperatures that risks damaging the floor.
Ideally UFH installs need to take things a step further than what this video covers as most condensing boilers won't simply run at a lower flow temperature with the introduction of one of these UFH systems unless the rest of the heating system and boiler controls are all designed to do that whilst still being able to provide hotter water when required for the rad circuit and hot water cylinder. These off the shelf retrofit UFH solutions generally have a mechanical mixing valve on the UFH manifold to mix water down to a temperatures suitable for the floor whilst the boiler itself is still set statically to run at a high 60c or so to service the rads and water cylinder, meaning there's no real efficiency gains.
It's a bit more expensive but a better way to do it is to use more advanced boiler controls to manage electronic mixing valves for each heating circuit along with weather or load compensation to minimise the boiler output dynamically. This way the UFH circuit temperature is blended down before the water reaches the UFH manifold that doesn't then require it's own fixed mechanical mixing valve. Running this way does actually give increased efficiency the controls will reduce the boiler flow temperatures to the minimum based on what the house actually requires. When the weather is cold the flow will be warmer and as it becomes milder, the UFH circuit flow temperature is reduced so the house doesn't get too warm, increasing efficiency further and allowing it to run for a lot longer at a lower temperature/output keeping room temperatures very consistent. With a basic mechanical mixing valve on the manifold it doesn't vary unless you continually adjust it by hand meaning you have a fixed flow temperature to the UFH. This has to be set at a temperature to cope with the coldest weather meaning it will be adding too much heat to the house in milder weather which then requires a lot more active room thermostat control turning UFH loops on and off throughout the day, which again will effect overall efficiency. Urban Plumbers has done a couple of good videos on these more advanced setups in the past few months.
Good info to there! Would a water ufh system work well woth a hot water tank with electric immersion heaters?
No, you need a boiler or heat pump
I live in a (very) hot part of the world and I'm wondering if I can use this system effectively to also cool my house? Any thoughts on this would be really welcome!
You can with most air/water heatpumps! They often have a 4way valve to switch between cooling and heating mode. However, you need to consider a few things. You can't cool the floor below dewpoint because moisture from the air will condensate on your floor. Hence, effectiveness depends on how hot and humid it gets at your location. Second issue is heat rises, so underfloor cooling isn't as effective in absorbing the heat because colder air tends to stay low. But you also have the same sort of sytem for walls. So instead of waterpipes running inside your floor, you have them in your walls. These are much more effective at cooling because convection. Also a great solution when you have wooden floors and underfloor heating isn't an option. Drilling in your walls with this system takes some more precautions tho.
What's the best system for electric only (economy 7) for those of us who live in flats.
Tepeo boiler or sunamp, hydronic underfloor
From what I've read, electricity companies are going to be phasing out economy 7.
Heatpump of some kind. Anything that involves direct conversion of electricity to heat is already basically 100% efficient, so whether its a space heater, electric radiator, oil-filled radiator, underfloor heating, it doesn't matter, all are equal. Only heatpumps can output more energy as heat compared to their input energy in electricity as it moves existing heat around, such as geothermal or air heat exchange from outside.
Inspired by your videos with heat geek etc I have opted for underfloor heating set in a new screed sourced by two heat pumps .
In Two rooms I am wantng to use engineered wood the remainder are porcelain .
Do you have any thoughts as to which company makes the best engineered wood floor , I’m assuming 14-15 would be preferable for heat transfer as opposed to 20mm , the strength of construction under the wear level being crucial .
There are so many companies all of which claim the suitability of floor for underfloor .
Hoping you may have experience that may guide me . Thanks .
Junkers is probably the best wood flooring but I have used oak floor with a plywood back and it works fine. Avoid floor that glues together as it will come apart. The wear layer on wood floor is measurable so you can easily choose a thicker wear layer.
Avoiding outdoor shoes is a good idea and I always choose oiled flooring rather than varnished. You can feed an oiled floor year after year to improve it. If you go for varnish and an area around a door wears, you will have to sand and revarnish the whole floor to get it to match. With an oiled floor you just rub is over lightly with a fine abrasive to even out the wear and then apply more oil and hard wax.
Can these systems be run under solid wooden flooring oak ash etc?
yes but keep the temperatures below 27'c.
Hi Roger, thanks would be great if you did an installation video of a low profile under floor heating system
We have done that video ruclips.net/video/a-7WxFMzgGE/видео.html
What is your opinion about electric heating mats UFH?
From my research for larger areas electric appears lower profile, costs slightly less to install but appears less powerful in heat transfer and more costly to run, even compared to a 1993 vintage lpg boiler!!
I think the option of Milling the floor was left out. Should be great for renovations and you do not lose any height.
What I would give to jack in my job in IT and shadow Roger, learning what he knows !!!
I was expecting solutions for different floor types such as between joists in an upstairs room, but you didn't really cover many options.
We have a whole play list on different types but, yes, we need to bring it all into one video.
The people screening our floor we're useless, lumpy and bumpy and that was just the lino (which was the incorrect one too)! After relocating we'd used them quite a bit, until one fine day they'd sold what we were going to buy. I asked for the measurements to take with me and he refused, haven't shopped there since.
Underfloor heating would be without any hesitation, my number 1 choice in a house for a number of reasons. The same reasons i detest radiator systems.
Couldn't afford wet so we went with leccy
Nice and easy and on and off as and when
it's unaffordable as a primary heat source.
@@edc1569 ours keeps the floor warm in the kitchen with the tiles
The insulation and cooking keeps the rest of it warm 🤣
We also went with electric for our kitchen extension, we haven't got mains gas in our village and when the house was local authority they installed an electric boiler. If we went wet then the boiler needed changing as it wouldn't of been up to the job so we just went with electric. If you have a similar system to us then I can say it works out cheaper to heat the ground floor, we noticed a massive difference when the main heating is switched on when looking at our smart meter display.
Got to be the Korean Ondol, am I right?
Surely rads have better efficiency than underfloor heating when there no floor insulation because of the 'direct' heat loss to the floor/concrete
And, of course, cheap and easy to install.
I think that would depend. I am not sure it's a slam dunk. Retrofit rads will always be cheaper
I know that because when I put my blow heater on, the cats immediately get up on something high.
If UFH wants to identify as convection heat then it is free to do so!
I use slippers and a jumper
Are those underfloor?
Would underfloor heating work better with a heat pump than radiators ? is that a question for the heat geeks …..
underfloor heating works better no matter the heat source, with a heat pump the efficiency improvement is greater.
Gives people leg ache, apparently.
if it is too hot it can
If a central heating system on gas with high efficiency works for longer ...all the parts will wear out much faster.Even the money saved on heating bill will be spent at some time on servicing the system....
😮💨🧱👍🏽