Under Floor Heating

Electr0n

chris1973 wrote: »

Unfortunately, no electric heating is cheap, largely because electricity in the UK is a second tier energy, and reliant on another form of energy first being produced and purchased in order to produce it.

I am running http://www.heatraesadia.com/393.htm providing domestic hot water and wet central heating with standard radiators on Economy 10 in a 2 bedroom appartment with a DD of £45/month. Have been here 14 months and have piping hot water for shower and baths and radiators are bouncing when they are on.

off-peak times
12am-5am, 1pm-4pm and 8pm-10pm

HappyMJ

Electr0n wrote: »

I am running http://www.heatraesadia.com/393.htm providing domestic hot water and wet central heating with standard radiators on Economy 10 in a 2 bedroom appartment with a DD of £45/month. Have been here 14 months and have piping hot water for shower and baths and radiators are bouncing when they are on.

off-peak times
12am-5am, 1pm-4pm and 8pm-10pm

But......Do you save money? You have not provided your annual usage in kWh broken down between peak and off-peak, your region and your supplier so I'll have to take a guess. I've tried this in the past with random suppliers and it's never worked so I'll pick SSE for now as they have one of the cheapest E10 tariffs.

Using SSE rates and my area the East Midlands.
Standing charges are 26.87p per day being £8.06 per month (30 days)
The peak rate is 14.69p per unit assuming usage of 4.5kWh per day (1650kWh per year half the national average) that's £19.83 per month.
The off peak rate is 8.31p per unit assuming usage of 7kWh per day that's £17.45 per month.
The total of which comes to £45.34 close to your direct debit.

If you had selected SSE's iplan then it would come to...
Standing charges 13.92p per day £4.18 per month.
Unit rates of 12.09p per unit 11.5kWh per day £41.71 per month
The total of that is £45.89.

Also, 4200kWh per year is quite low for normal electric usage, heating and hot water but certainly possible in a 2 bedroom flat. The East Mid's is also one of the cheapest regions for an E10 supply most other regions are more expensive. http://www.sse.co.uk/uploadedFiles/CoreMarketingSites/Assets/Documents/NonStandardRates.pdf

To me the hassle factor of only having heating within those hours and none at all in the other hours just isn't worth 55 pence per month....and SSE's standard rate is quite high at 12p per unit. Switching to a better standard plan would save money and earn a bit of cash back.

mattghi007

More delving has led me to the following - The thermostats are Devireg 550 - there is a plethora of info about it on the web and loads of instruction manuals all slightly contradicting each other on set up. Some say to set the floor up as Floor sensor only for 'comfort mode' and others say use Room & Floor sensor for 'Total Heating'. I've got it set to FS only as these were the instructions that came with some replacement thermostats but I'm wondering if that is correct now as it'll only be monitoring the temp of the floor not of the room....

UncleZen

Why would you want to heat a utility room (kitchen accepted) anyway? UFH or otherwise. If so, set it really low.

macman

You haven't addressed the real issue. Having UFH on E7 is insane-unless you only want to run the UFH overnight! I assume that you originally had storage heaters and did not change your metering when these were removed?
You need to switch on to a single rate tariff immediately.

veggieblob

I have ufh and an ashp in a brand new "eco" house. I am on E7 tariff but it does work for me as my house is extremely well insulated and holds almost all of the heat generated in it. I run the heating from when I go to bed until the end of the E7 session and then I switch the thermostats to zero and turn off the ASHP. I do work during the day so there is no door opening and closing going on and most days there is a small amount of sun heating through the windows (triple glazed). Adding this to using washing machine on delay to run at night and my fuel (elect only) bills have not gone over £35 in a month.
I was told to run the ufh contantly and let the thermostats do the work. I was also told the ashp uses no power when not producing power. I have found the first to be less cost effective and the second to be untrue.
However, to be noticeable I do think that the ufh has to be run regularly to keep topping up the heat. I think like me you will need quite a bit of trial and error, including alternative sources of heat as suggested, to find out what is right for you. I used an oil filled radiator for most of the winter because it has been so mild but am sorting out the heating now.
Sorry I've waffled! Good luck

Roaming

veggieblob wrote: »

I have ufh and an ashp in a brand new "eco" house. I am on E7 tariff but it does work for me as my house is extremely well insulated and holds almost all of the heat generated in it. I run the heating from when I go to bed until the end of the E7 session and then I switch the thermostats to zero and turn off the ASHP. I do work during the day so there is no door opening and closing going on and most days there is a small amount of sun heating through the windows (triple glazed). Adding this to using washing machine on delay to run at night and my fuel (elect only) bills have not gone over £35 in a month.
I was told to run the ufh contantly and let the thermostats do the work. I was also told the ashp uses no power when not producing power. I have found the first to be less cost effective and the second to be untrue.
However, to be noticeable I do think that the ufh has to be run regularly to keep topping up the heat. I think like me you will need quite a bit of trial and error, including alternative sources of heat as suggested, to find out what is right for you. I used an oil filled radiator for most of the winter because it has been so mild but am sorting out the heating now.
Sorry I've waffled! Good luck

Can I ask what the make of the UFH is? We're currently looking in to this for a house we are moving in to. We wanted to have it put down on the ground floor for the living room (16sq. m) with wood flooring. I'm going to be home all day with a baby so it would be nice to have it comfy and warm during that time as well and not just evening/night.

We've just picked up brochures for Varme, Topps Tiles 'Warmup' and HeatMat underfloor heating solutions. Any comments on these would be great!

Thanks!