Wet underfloor heating, worth the cost?
Discussion
We are moving to a new house shortly, a 4 bed detached built in 2002. Nothing has been done since new, so it is relatively dated/tired on the inside. There are plenty of jobs to do, including re-decoration, new staircase, new flooring/carpets etc.
Someone suggested considering putting wet underfloor heating in downstairs before we so anything else due to disruption caused, and I hadn’t considered this previously. The downstairs is roughly 78sqm, and the internet tells me to expect installation costs of about £100sqm, making this a very expensive job, one which I’m struggling to see the benefit of. As I understand it, the key benefits are removal of radiators creating more wall space, a more regulated temperature, and potentially slightly more efficient compared to radiators. In addition to the cost, the concrete floors would need to be dug up creating a bit of a mess.
Is this all worth it? It’s a 10 year house for us at least, and we intend to finish the flooring with a mixture of carpet, engineered wood, and tiling, if that makes any difference. I doubt we’d recover costs from an efficiency perspective (correct me if I am wrong), so it’s just whether it makes it a nicer place to live.
Someone suggested considering putting wet underfloor heating in downstairs before we so anything else due to disruption caused, and I hadn’t considered this previously. The downstairs is roughly 78sqm, and the internet tells me to expect installation costs of about £100sqm, making this a very expensive job, one which I’m struggling to see the benefit of. As I understand it, the key benefits are removal of radiators creating more wall space, a more regulated temperature, and potentially slightly more efficient compared to radiators. In addition to the cost, the concrete floors would need to be dug up creating a bit of a mess.
Is this all worth it? It’s a 10 year house for us at least, and we intend to finish the flooring with a mixture of carpet, engineered wood, and tiling, if that makes any difference. I doubt we’d recover costs from an efficiency perspective (correct me if I am wrong), so it’s just whether it makes it a nicer place to live.
Totally not worth it, economically, unless you are doing new build. We also had to dig up a concrete floor to do it, so it cost a fortune.
We did it because we live in London, and in the market we'll sell our house into (6 bed refurbished family home), it will be expected by a buyer. We'll be in the house for 5-10 years.
We did it because we live in London, and in the market we'll sell our house into (6 bed refurbished family home), it will be expected by a buyer. We'll be in the house for 5-10 years.
It makes little sense economically (assuming mains-fed heat source), there are savings to be had but certainly in 10 years it'll never pay for itself. The rest therefore comes down to inclinations.
Control - set up properly, you can have multiple zone control, automatic layback, internet / remote controls, integration into other automated systems. All of this can be done on a radiator circuit but is a little more complex to set up in terms of pumping and piping whereas with UFH its easy thanks to the design of most manifolds.
Space - rooms whether small or large become very different spaces if you're not needing to avoid blocking a radiator or have somewhere in the room that is colder or hotter than another. See below:
Convected vs radiant heat - taste, but once you've had radiant you're unlikely to be a rush to go back!
Floor covering and use - particularly for wet areas (bath room / exterior hallways / utility) or even just when you mop the floor it's hilarious to see how quickly it dries off.
If you like the idea, get some serious quotes and think it all the way through. You can do overlay systems which are more expensive up front but mean you don't have to remove the concrete for example so there's a saving to be had there. We chose to rip out the entire ground floor and put back a new slab - house was 1950s so there was no insulation to speak of under the floor at all (despite it having a 50's UFH system in there!) so we also gained efficiency from putting back a modern slab with insulation. I think we paid about 4kish to rip out the floor and reinstate, £800ish for insulation and about 4k for UFH. Our alternative, given we were renovating was about £2-2.5k of radiators and about £1500 or so of replumbing and so on - so costs were very nearly double... no regrets however as we now have massive glass area in downstairs rooms which we couldn't have achieved without binning the rads, so in that respect putting UFH in changed what we could do in terms of the renovations.
There's no hard and fast answer really, other than the simple economic no, so there's no should, more a question of whether you just want to.
Control - set up properly, you can have multiple zone control, automatic layback, internet / remote controls, integration into other automated systems. All of this can be done on a radiator circuit but is a little more complex to set up in terms of pumping and piping whereas with UFH its easy thanks to the design of most manifolds.
Space - rooms whether small or large become very different spaces if you're not needing to avoid blocking a radiator or have somewhere in the room that is colder or hotter than another. See below:
Convected vs radiant heat - taste, but once you've had radiant you're unlikely to be a rush to go back!
Floor covering and use - particularly for wet areas (bath room / exterior hallways / utility) or even just when you mop the floor it's hilarious to see how quickly it dries off.
If you like the idea, get some serious quotes and think it all the way through. You can do overlay systems which are more expensive up front but mean you don't have to remove the concrete for example so there's a saving to be had there. We chose to rip out the entire ground floor and put back a new slab - house was 1950s so there was no insulation to speak of under the floor at all (despite it having a 50's UFH system in there!) so we also gained efficiency from putting back a modern slab with insulation. I think we paid about 4kish to rip out the floor and reinstate, £800ish for insulation and about 4k for UFH. Our alternative, given we were renovating was about £2-2.5k of radiators and about £1500 or so of replumbing and so on - so costs were very nearly double... no regrets however as we now have massive glass area in downstairs rooms which we couldn't have achieved without binning the rads, so in that respect putting UFH in changed what we could do in terms of the renovations.
There's no hard and fast answer really, other than the simple economic no, so there's no should, more a question of whether you just want to.
Harry Flashman said:
Totally not worth it, economically, unless you are doing new build. We also had to dig up a concrete floor to do it, so it cost a fortune.
We did it because we live in London, and in the market we'll sell our house into (6 bed refurbished family home), it will be expected by a buyer. We'll be in the house for 5-10 years.
I'd disagree, we have it and it's fantastic, would never be without it. Our was part new build, part refurb and it only added about £4.5k to the cost (as well as a load of our time). It's a no brainer for me.We did it because we live in London, and in the market we'll sell our house into (6 bed refurbished family home), it will be expected by a buyer. We'll be in the house for 5-10 years.
I've done a pug type thing under our suspended timber floors while refurbing and it works well, but digging out a sound concrete floor to then fill it back in again with more concrete is nuts if you already have pipework and rads in place.
New build it makes perfect sense though - the even spread of heat is fantastic.
New build it makes perfect sense though - the even spread of heat is fantastic.
Ive installed it several times and put it in houses i have built, the only real pro for me is aesthetically, one of the houses i built was oak framed with vaulted ceilings and a lot of glass so i didnt want rads and it worked well.
There are issues with solar gain however so if you south facing and have 70mm of screed and a lot of glass the heat up and cool down time of the screed can be a pain in the arse causing you to over heat.
I also dont buy the "its more economical" yes your heating the water to a lower temperature but there is a shed load more of it to heat.
So in my opinion if your building something special then yep its great otherwise i dont think you can beat the faster recation time of rads
Just my 2 pence worth
ss
Thanks, I expected that it wasn’t economical from a financial perspective, so it’s interesting to see comments on the benefits in other respects. There is a likelihood that in 3-5 years we will open up the back of the house with a small extension to create an open plan kitchen/diner/living area. Perhaps we could look at that stage to just have that area with the UFH, as I can see the additional benefit with more open areas. We’ll definitely be putting electric UFH in the upstairs bathroom and ensuite.
I’ve heard that in some cases, it can be installed to quite a low profile to avoid digging up concrete, but on a 15 year old house, will the insulation provided by that concrete be sufficient?
The alternative is something like evohome to provide more regulated heat and control through radiators. Probably not as effective, but vastly cheaper.
I’ve heard that in some cases, it can be installed to quite a low profile to avoid digging up concrete, but on a 15 year old house, will the insulation provided by that concrete be sufficient?
The alternative is something like evohome to provide more regulated heat and control through radiators. Probably not as effective, but vastly cheaper.
Muncher said:
Harry Flashman said:
Totally not worth it, economically, unless you are doing new build. We also had to dig up a concrete floor to do it, so it cost a fortune.
We did it because we live in London, and in the market we'll sell our house into (6 bed refurbished family home), it will be expected by a buyer. We'll be in the house for 5-10 years.
I'd disagree, we have it and it's fantastic, would never be without it. Our was part new build, part refurb and it only added about £4.5k to the cost (as well as a load of our time). It's a no brainer for me.We did it because we live in London, and in the market we'll sell our house into (6 bed refurbished family home), it will be expected by a buyer. We'll be in the house for 5-10 years.
It may well me a nice thing to have - but the cost of digging up, laying and re-screeding is a great deal more than just replacing some rads and pipework above ground.
It turned out that we had to dig up our slab anyway, as it had some issues - and we then did the UFH for resale, and because it seems like we were having to spend the major cost anyway. Otherwise I would have just replaced the rads and pipework.
The aesthetic thing doesn't bother me - I have lovely raw steel column rads through the house that look beautiful. However, this winter will be the first time we use the UFH, and I do like the idea of constant, low, even heat in the main ground floor.
As a moneysaver on a renovation project though? No way, unless you're in the house for decades! May be good for re-sale.
Edited by Harry Flashman on Wednesday 24th August 15:50
Muncher said:
...we have it and it's fantastic, would never be without it. Our was part new build, part refurb....
Same with us - wouldn't be without it. It's in our kitchen (50sq m) and also done as part refurb, part new.We used an overlay system which brought down the workload enormously and the cost of installation.
I've had UFH in my last 4 homes and would never be without it by choice.
BUT - I would never retrofit it in the OPs situation. As has been said, if you're building new or are already planning to rip up the floors as part of a major remodelling job then fine, but to do all that work just to replace the radiators is not an economically sound idea imo.
BUT - I would never retrofit it in the OPs situation. As has been said, if you're building new or are already planning to rip up the floors as part of a major remodelling job then fine, but to do all that work just to replace the radiators is not an economically sound idea imo.
I have it in the bathroom, its an extra loop on the normal rad system with a seperate thermostat/pump
It certainly is nice when it is on, much nicer then a cold tile floor in the winter, but because the house is pretty well isolated, the heat isnt on much, even in winter, so that is a downside to this type (over switchaable electric)
I also dislike the pump bit, at anything above the lowest setting it is distinctly audible at night, and at 30-60w it is a not insignificant electrical load to have running 24-7.. (did have it set up with a timing switch, but due to the not strictly predictable heater this isnt ideal either)
As for wall-space, all my rads are mounted under the windows (with the exception of a designer rad/towlrack in the bathroom and one underneath the stairs in the hall), which should be a common place for them right? no real wallspace lost
It certainly is nice when it is on, much nicer then a cold tile floor in the winter, but because the house is pretty well isolated, the heat isnt on much, even in winter, so that is a downside to this type (over switchaable electric)
I also dislike the pump bit, at anything above the lowest setting it is distinctly audible at night, and at 30-60w it is a not insignificant electrical load to have running 24-7.. (did have it set up with a timing switch, but due to the not strictly predictable heater this isnt ideal either)
As for wall-space, all my rads are mounted under the windows (with the exception of a designer rad/towlrack in the bathroom and one underneath the stairs in the hall), which should be a common place for them right? no real wallspace lost
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