Underfloor heating cost

freeisgood

I’m presuming these are water pipes? I’m really hoping! I had no idea. Bendy_House 🤦‍♀️

ComicGeek

Yeah, that's a wet underfloor heating manifold, so should be fed from the gas boiler then. 

Bendy_House

Cool - these are the zones for your UFH, powered by your gas boiler, and neatly labelled.

As before, any zones/rooms you don't HAVE to actually use, then turn them down to 'frost', crack open a window, and shut that door.

I just don't know how controllable these are in terms of heat response, so whether, for example, Bedroom 1 can be effectively off during the day, and only come on to provide some warmth just before bedtime, and again just before you wake up? Probably worth some experimentation come winter; Bed1 off all day and eve, then turn it on at, say, 9pm - and see how long it takes to be adequately warm in there. That time will become your 'on lag'. Once 'warm', turn it off, and see how long the room remains warm for - that's your 'offski lag'.

If, for example, you find that it takes a half-hour to warm the floor and hence the room, and around the same time to cool down again, then I guess you could have your bedroom zone come on, say, 45 mins before bedtime, and go off after a half-hour, so the bedroom should be 'warm' when you go there, and remain warmish for a short while after you are in bed.  Something like that. And ditto for the following morn.

What type of control does each zone have? Manual temp stats, or digital/programmable?

Bear in mind that I haven't a clue how these zones can be 'programmed' for best use as regards timings, but would be very interested to find out as MIL's bungalow has UFH...

If, after some research, you discover that these zones - say Bed1 - are really too sluggish in response to be controlled like this, and they are ';expected' to be left on pretty much all of the time, then you may wish to consider instead leaving the bedroom zone permanently off, and just have, say, a 2kW oil-filled rad in there, with a built-in timer - so really only a half hour at night and then next morn. An hour of leccy heat could be a lot cheaper than many hours of gentle gas heating. But, I don't know...

There's no 'Sitting Room' in that list?! How is that heated? Is the dining room a completely separate room with its own door? If so, again consider shutting that zone off, crack wind, shut t'door, and eating instead in the warmed living area.

freeisgood

Thanks so much for your response, all of these rooms on the downstairs floor. We have a digital control each zone. (Three-storey  so sitting room is actually upstairs).
Kitchen/ diner is L shaped room so they seem to have got two areas but there only one control in that room . 
There are instructions but quite complicated to understand ( I don’t even know how to set the boiler timer) I’m not good at this “housey stuff” 🤦‍♀️

Bendy_House

freeisgood said:

Thanks so much for your response, all of these rooms on the downstairs floor. We have a digital control each zone. (Three-storey  so sitting room is actually upstairs)
There are instructions but quite complicated to understand ( I don’t even know how to set the boiler timer) I’m not good at this “housey stuff” 🤦‍♀️

Makes, models, and ideally photos of the controls and boiler :-)

Apodemus

Bendy, in a modern, well-insulated, two-storey property, I'm not sure I agree with the advice to turn the unused rooms to frost and crack open the window.  The insulated envelop of the house is probably the outside wall, and there may be little insulation between the rooms or between the ground floor and the upstairs bedrooms.  So having a cold room could give rise to a condensation risk on the internal walls downstairs and an increased heating requirement upstairs.

I think I'd rather turn the heating in the unused room down to  low and leave the internal door open.

Bendy_House

You could be right, Apod - I don't know.

I see your point - if you allow a room to be effectively as cold as the outside (tho' always comfortably above freezing), then you are effectively also making the shared internal walls into poorly-insulated 'external' ones. So, heat from the rest of the house will be lost through these walls to the colder side in that room.

Hmm, good point. 

I don't know what the balance point is, how the running costs of each setup should compare.

From experience - tho' always with older, harder to heat, homes - shutting off an unused room, ventilating it, and keeping it only from freezing, causes it no harm whatsoever - it remains bone dry and fresh. To keep its internal door open WOULD cause issues in that room.

Personally, I won't be heating any unused rooms this year...

Apodemus

Yes, I agree on the older homes.  It was just that this particular one was so new.

macman

Good result for you. Out of interest, what made you think it was electric UFH at first? 
Another clue would be to look at your CU: if there was electric UFH then there would presumably be a circuit labelled as such.

freeisgood

Thank you kindly Bendy_House 
Attached are photos of the digital displays, the boiler, and cylinder which lives on the top floor in a cupboard.