Underfloor heating advice

raxx99

I'm looking to get underfloor heating installed in two rooms on the ground floor of my home. The product I'm looking at is warmup electric underfloor sticky mats. 

I've been advised by a builder, the sticky mats can be placed directly on the concrete floor, and a floor leveller/screed can be applied directly on top of the mat as a thin layer. At this point an underlay can be layered on top and laminate flooring on top of that.

My question is, is underfloor electric heating compatible with laminate / wood flooring (some sources say yes, others say no), and secondly is this the correct layered approach to installing the underfloor heating? Will the heat even penetrate through the various layers to even feel it? I'm a little skeptical this is viable so any advice is welcomed.

FIREmenow

Are the mats insulating underneath to stop heat loss into the concrete floor? Wood is a natural insulator so is not the best flooring to have on top. Have you calculated the cost of running and electric system for the size of your rooms?

raxx99

FIREmenow said:

Are the mats insulating underneath to stop heat loss into the concrete floor? Wood is a natural insulator so is not the best flooring to have on top. Have you calculated the cost of running and electric system for the size of your rooms?

Not done any calculations for heating, tbh it's more of an add on, as the central heating for the room is calculated based on btu output. 

Yes good point about insulation on concrete, I will need to get this.

So in this case would you recommend to go down the plastic/engineered stuff for flooring? The kitchen will be tiled so this shouldn't be an issue but the living room I was planning on 13mm laminate flooring. But now I'm having to rethink this.

Rodders53

Electric underfloor heating is / will be cripplingly expensive to run if you have gas or kerosene central heating available use it.

Wet overlay underfloor heating may be possible, subject to depths.  It can be done in an overlay format.  But ideally the floor needs ripping up and lots of insulation fitted beneath with any form of UFH.

Our wet UFH works fine with engineered wooden floors and is warmer underfoot than the ceramic tiled floors when the heating is off.

In our last home we found that installing engineered wood laminate over fibre insulating underlay board was quite acceptably warm underfoot... but it was a recent build and would have had decent insulation under the floor. 

Emmia

If you want it warmer underfoot, I'd avoid cold ceramic tiles in the kitchen, and would go for LVT instead - we switched from tiles to LVT and it is noticeably warmer feeling without any underfloor heating.

Mutton_Geoff

Electric UFH a waste of money in anything other than a downstairs loo. Expensive to run and 90% of your energy heating the concrete beneath it. Wet UFH in properly insulated screed is OK, electric not.

FIREmenow

As others have said a wet system is more efficient/cheaper to run than an electric one. 

We have a wet system in our kitchen under a York stone floor which has good thermal mass. We lifted it and dug a pit for insulation and base underneath, and insulated around the edges of the room with cork board. It's an old house so the flags were just laid on bare earth original and were very damp!