Underfloor heating - any good/costs?

Bobo1985

Hi all,
Just wondering if anyone has underfloor heating and could give me advice on how it works/costs?
We are thinking of renting an apartment with underfloor heating so just want people's advice if it's worth our while or too expensive!

Thanks in advance

murphaph

Like any system, what it costs to run will depend largely on how well it was installed and the under floor heating is just one part of the system. The other major component is the insulation & air tightness of the dwelling. You could have a perfectly installed heating system and no insulation and the "heating system" will be costing you a fortune to run (in reality it's not the heating system at fault at all of course). Similarly, you could have well specified insulation but poorly installed, draughty windows letting all the heat out past the insulation.

You have to look at the whole thing to get an idea of running costs and the BER cert won't give you a real picture, just a theoretical one.

Under floor heating itself is not complicated. Instead of one small high temperature element (a radiator) heating a room, you have a large low temperature element (the piping or electric heating elements under the floor, but I'll assume you are looking at a wet system). The underfloor system when correctly installed should be more comfortable under foot, especially in tiled kitchens and bathrooms.

They work by taking hot water from your boiler and mixing it with cold water to reduce the temperature before circulating it around the under floor pipework. The temperature is measured when the water returns and if required more hot water from the boiler is mixed in and so on.

Ideally you couple a low temp under floor system with a similarly low temp heat pump based system, but as it's an apartment that's highly unlikely to be the case here.

Another advantage is that under floor means no rads, so you can put furniture anywhere you want.

If you are not responsible for the maintenance I would be more than happy to have under floor heating in my apartment, I wish we had in fact!

thegreatiam

underfloor heating is great. When you leave your towels on the floor your missus cant get a moody at you for not hanging them up to dry.

meeeeh

thegreatiam wrote: »

underfloor heating is great. When you leave your towels on the floor your missus cant get a moody at you for not hanging them up to dry.

If you can dry towels like that it means its way to hot and not great for your legs.

Underfloor heating is great but it is less responsive to the sudden temperature changes and it takes longer to increase the temperature of the room. Then the temperature stays much more constant and your heathing bills should be lower if the place is insulated properly. If it is not the floor will be too warm and your feet might suffer (mine swell).

thegreatiam

meeeeh wrote: »

If you can dry towels like that it means its way to hot and not great for your legs.

Thats what she said, im still not picking them up tho.

RATM

thegreatiam wrote: »

underfloor heating is great. When you leave your towels on the floor your missus cant get a moody at you for not hanging them up to dry.

Reminds of when I stayed in a hostel in a ski resort a few years back. The room had underfloor heating so we used to just throw all our wet jackets and trousers on it and bingo- within 2 hours they were all dry again. Happy days

Bobo1985

Hi all, thanks so much for all the replies, took the apartment anyhow so hopefully it will work out ok!