Electric Under Floor heating - any good?

JohnB47

Hi.

We're going to have our bathroom completely 'done up' and the missus wants under floor heating. I'm not so sure, so I thought I'd ask if anyone has had any experience of this - warm up time, efficiency, running costs, reliability etc.

The floor is traditional wood floorboards on joists and I believe the company doing it for us will lay down some sort of insulating/levelling board first, then the UFH mat, then the ceramic floor tiles we've chosen. The system will be controlled by a programmer/timer fitted outside the bathroom and we imagine using it mainly to heat up the floor tiles - i.e. not necessarily as a 'primary heat source' (we're having a combination electric/plumbed-in towel rail fitted too).

Is this a good idea? We think we could get away with programming it to come on 20 mins before we need the bathroom and go off after, say, after a total of 1.5 hours. The trouble is, we are both semi retired and the pattern of our bathroom use is not particularly regular - there will be many days when we can't predict when we would need the UFH on, so any feedback on how quickly the floor tiles are likely to heat up would be useful.

Thanks.

evokit

We have it on our whole downstairs, had the same in our last house also.
The running cost isnt that bad and hasnt gone up from what it was with rads and we use it 90% as our main source down stairs.
when you use the controller you shouldnt turn it off, the controller will come pre set also. You need to put it down to about 14 when you dont use it as turning it on and off costs alot more to re power the system.
we use to turn it off in the summer, but as you know we dont get them anymore

JohnB47

evokit wrote: »

We have it on our whole downstairs, had the same in our last house also.
The running cost isnt that bad and hasnt gone up from what it was with rads and we use it 90% as our main source down stairs.
when you use the controller you shouldnt turn it off, the controller will come pre set also. You need to put it down to about 14 when you dont use it as turning it on and off costs alot more to re power the system.
we use to turn it off in the summer, but as you know we dont get them anymore

Thanks for this.

In the meantime, I've looked at the website for the product our fitters will use and they speak of three different versions - one to just heat the tiles, one to heat the room and one for conservatories. This raises another question - which version have I been quoted for and which would be best for a relatively modest bathroom (overall about 3 x 4 metres, 'walkable' floor area about half of that).

Anyway - other feedback welcome.

Thanks again.

evokit

really??
i when to an specialist supplier for ours that i fiited both times myself.
What i remember is that depending how much output you require is just how colse you lay the cables under the tile.
eg, closer = warmer
further apart = warming
i only fitted mine 3 yrs ago so unless they have changed this?? i would assume theres not much different.
P.s i had self laying cable

diable

evokit wrote: »

P.s i had self laying cable

You mean you left the roll of cable in the room shut the door and when you came back 30 minutes later it had uncoiled and attached itself to the floor? Impressive :)

Only kidding :rotfl:

Warmup_UFH

Hi John,

We are realistically the only electric underfloor heating company that canprovide you with truly accurate answers to your questions about. heating uptimes, efficiency and costs due to our state of the art research anddevelopment centre.

I’m not going to provide you with a link as I think that’s against the forumrules and could constitute spam but you can find us with a quick Google.

If you get in touch we would be more than happy to answer any questions youhave (different wire types and what difference it makes) so that you get the best system for your bathroom.

Ben84

If you find ceramic tiles cold and unpleasant feeling, I would suggest that you should change the flooring material you plan to use. You can get much warmer feeling materials such as cork tiles for bathrooms which are very warm, or lino which I find cool rather than cold. They're also usually a lot less slippery than ceramic tiles.

I guess I just don't see the point using a material you don't like the feel of, then spending money on electric heaters and electricity and also time on pre-heating it before you use the room, when you can just use a material you like the feel of in the first place that is always ready to walk comfortably on whenever you want to use the room.

JohnB47

Thanks everyone.

Warmup - I've had a look at your site and unless I'm missing something, just like the site for the ufh product my installer is planning to fit, I can find no indication of the actual running costs for UFH. That's what I'm looking for - even a rough estimate.

For example, the walkable area of my wooden floored bathroom is approx 1.5 X 1.6 metres. If the ufh was fitted over an insulation board and was run on average for, say, 3 hours per day, what would that equate to per week/month/year (just to heat the tiles, not the whole room). Are we talking £50 per year, £150 per year, £500 per year? You see, I have absolutely no idea.

I know you could give me that info but my installer has given me a price for an alternative product so I don't think it's fair to put you to that trouble (if you're not likely to get the business). Thanks anyway.

For anyone else reading this - can you give me any guidance of the running costs. If you like you could tell me how you run your system and how much it costs.

(I see that nobody who sells this type of product gives a power consumption figure ie input wattage. I wonder why? If I had that figure per sq metre I could do my own worst case calculations).

Edit: Hmmm, I'm now wondering if the figures given (eg 150watts, 200 watts per sq m are the actual power consumption rating. I took these to be a sort of heat output rating but now I'm thinking that this must also be the consumption wattage, as all of the energy must be converted to heat).

Thanks again all.

sillygoose

JohnB47 wrote: »

Thanks for this.

In the meantime, I've looked at the website for the product our fitters will use and they speak of three different versions - one to just heat the tiles, one to heat the room and one for conservatories.

That will be down to different wattages per square metre. You can have 100w or less for warming the tiles, 150w for modest level heating and 200 watt is generally the highest and can warm a conservatory pretty well (my 200watt system heats mine nicely!)

It seems you only want comfort warming so not too warm, and the room will be generally heated as well. If you consider the insulation layer under the tiles will help the tiles pick up room temperature more easily - you are only boosting the temperature so it should be quite cheap.

The floor should be installed with a sensor to the controller allowing you to set your desired temperature, it will also maintain the temperature by cycling the power on and off so the power consumption isn't constant - makes it a bit harder to calculate it may only be drawing power 50% of the time.

You can try to calculate 'worst case' and take it from there, say your bathroom is 5 sq metre of floor and you had 4 metres of 100w/m heating mat/cables put in. You run them 2 hours in the morning, 3 in the evening using the controller timer. 100x4(400watt) x 5 hours = 2000 (2kw\hours)

So find out how much you pay for electricity per kw\hour. (electricity bill or provider websites?)

times by 2 (2kw) and that your daily worst case cost, and then by 365 for yearly cost. Again this is worst case, in practice the system should cycle on/off so use less power.

Finally avoid Warmup, its a dinosaur, hugely overpriced but nothing clever and the controllers are old hat. If you want a reference for Warmup go look at the inch thick dust on the boxes in B&Q!

I have personally used in my own home and recomended to many satisfied people Ambient stuff, professional products at trade rather than retail prices.

http://www.ambient-elec.co.uk

tpt

The best answer is don't! there just isn't a need in a bathroom thats fitted to wood.
The tiles wont be overly cold as wood is already an insulator. Tiles aren't any colder than the substrate they are fixed to unless you use marble. You've already said you aren't going to use it as a primary heatsource so honestly.....there really is no need.

It can make sense when laid over concrete substrates, in conservatories etc, but upstairs in a bathroom - save your money.

fluffpot

and I would say - do! The UFH is really there just to take the chill off the tiles and it does make a big difference esp with the more expensive tiles. If you are going for a new bathroom, I would say do it as now is the chance. If you're handy with a calculator you can work out how much its costing by using the wattage per sq m, the unit charge of electricity and the time it is on.

But alternatively you could just ignore that bit and have cosy toes when you step out of the shower!