Flat with underfloor heating (electric) - potential issues?

bangragal

I've just seen round a flat which has underfloor electric heating. Although there is a gas pipe to the flats, this flat runs entirely on electric.

I've never come across underfloor heating before so have no idea about the pros and cons. I did notice that where there were carpets in the flat, they were extremely thin ones - I would want to replace them all with proper ones but would that inhibit the heating?

Ideally if I were to buy it, in the long term I'd be thinking about changing to gas as I've heard that electric is more expensive - it's a 2 bed flat and will have two people living there. Obviously i'm going to ask about average bills but are there any pros to using electric for heating?

thanks

G_M

I suggest you try the utility forums for info on this.

Logic dictates that heavy fitted carpets on top of underfloor heating is a crazy notion, but I'm no expert. How is the heating powered? Cheap rate night-time tarrif?

Underflorr heaing is supposed to be quite eficient if well installed, and a comfortable source, but do some googling to understand pros/cons

cattie

If this is underfloor heating installed some years ago ( quite popular in the 70's & 80's ) and not the more up to date energy efficient kind that has become popular during the past couple of years, then it will be quite expensive & not too efficient to run. I lived for many years in a home with underfloor heating, but the very nature of it meant that it was not enough to keep the home comfortably warm without running additional heating. Having gas central heating installed there was one of the best decisions I made during my time there.

lr1277

I have a flat where the underfloor heating was installed when the flat was built, in the 60's. The heating worked in one room but not in the other. It is on economy 7, but the electricity bills were huge to keep the flat warm to the tenant's desired temperature.
Additionally when I bought the flat, I installed laminate flooring which needed some underlay so the noise wouldn't travel downwards to the flat below. This reduced the efficiency of the heating.

So my advice is:
parts of or whole rooms heating might not work. Check this out.
Because the heating was installed in the 60's, the controls were rubbish. I would check these out to see the type of control you can achieve with the heating.
See if it is Economy 7 or something similar, to make the heating bill a bit cheaper.
Replacing broken underfloor heating is a pain because you have to move all the furniture out first, and if a hard floor, the flooring as well.

HTH

bangragal

Thank you all for your replies. Have found out a bit more, it was installed in the early 60s when the flat was built and there are carpets in the flat so it is not being used very efficiently. In addition, the heating only runs from 7pm to 7am so portable electric heaters are being used during the day.

From the replies it seems like the sensible option would be to install gas ch which is what I would be veering towards anyway as it seems this is likely to be cheaper in the long run and would potentially make the flat easier to rent out or sell on in the future.