Electric under floor heating - advice please

parcival

We live in a 4 storey house with the kitchen on the ground floor. At the moment it has no heating. The other 3 floors have gas central heating which works fine.


I don't want a conventional rad in the kitchen so are thinking of underfloor heating for that one room. The room has a level concrete floor presently covered with cheap laminate.


We would be replacing the laminate with something of better quality as part of this project. The floor area of the room is about 10 x 15 feet.


Can anyone advise on the type of system and an idea of the final installed cost (excl flooring) please.

lstar337

Unless the concrete is insulated underneath, then the heat will simply leech through and into the ground.

If you want underfloor heating then I believe it needs to be done from scratch by removing the current concrete slab and insulating it properly, or you need to insulate on top of the current slab and build up your floor level.

I'm sure an expert can give more information than me or point out that I am wrong.

You may need to get somebody in to do a proper evaluation of your current floor to get a real idea of the work involved. It isn't as simple as just slapping some pipes down and putting a pretty surface on.

fezster

I've used warmup in my bathrooms. They also do insulation boards of varying thickness, which reduces heat up time, and maintains the heat for longer. They will increase your floor height slightly, but are a must in my opinion.

Be warned, though, that electric underfloor heating is very expensive to run, and doesn't maintain it's heat very long, even with the insulation boards. A better (but more costly) approach would be to use a wet underfloor heating system. You can get a system which uses plastic pipes laid above your concrete slab, although it will definitely increase the floor level far more than electric.

Rain_Shadow

fezster wrote: »

I've used warmup in my bathrooms. They also do insulation boards of varying thickness, which reduces heat up time, and maintains the heat for longer. They will increase your floor height slightly, but are a must in my opinion.

Be warned, though, that electric underfloor heating is very expensive to run, and doesn't maintain it's heat very long, even with the insulation boards. A better (but more costly) approach would be to use a wet underfloor heating system. You can get a system which uses plastic pipes laid above your concrete slab, although it will definitely increase the floor level far more than electric.

I have just had this installed in a newly built extension. Having seen what is involved I would imagine it would be prohibitively expensive to install and maintain the current floor level as well as extremely disruptive.