Just switched on our underfloor heating for the first time..
Discussion
And it's flipping brilliant.
We've spent a over a year installing it (not full time, obviously).
200 year old house, so floorboards had to be marked, numbered and carefully lifted as they're all odd shapes and sizes, large rooms done half/half to make it easier.
Timber substrate, so battens on the joists, 50mm Kingspan cut to size, pipes laid on top, pack with sand/cement mix, and floorboards re-laid on top.
The whole flat comes to about 140 m^2, so there actually wasn't that much to do, but flippin' heck, it was hard work.
We have a 'zone' for each room, bathroom and en-suite have electric underfloor (wasn't worth a water zone for 1.5m^2) and zoned towel rail, all other rooms have wet underfloor.
We have a manifold for the heating hidden behind a panel in the bathroom, and the controls and boiler in a cupboard in the en-suite.
For controls, we went for Heatmiser;
http://www.heatmiser.co.uk/
and it's superb kit.
A touch-screen thermostat in each room, with a temperature profile set up specifically for each room so heating is on/off at certain times of day.
We also went for the central control unit;
which is a bit over the top, but a good gadget!
To give you an idea how it works with 'zoned' heating;
6am to 8am - temperature is set to be comfortable in the bedroom at around 20 degrees. System will auto-learn how long it takes to get from one temperature to another, so will start up more efficiently as time goes on.
7am to 8am - temperature in en-suite is set to be comfortable, towel radiator and tiles are nice and warm, get out of the shower on to a warm floor with a warm towel.
8am - 9am Temperature in the kitchen/lounge set to 20 degrees for brekky.
Home time - Lounge set to 21 degrees from 5pm to 11pm.
Bedroom set at 19 degrees from 10pm to 12pm, then fall back to 17 degrees overnight.
Hallway set to constant 19 degrees throughout the day, fallback to 17 degrees overnight.
It sounds like a lot of heating, but it's only heating the room you're actually using, rather than the whole place, so works out very efficient.
One thing we did find odd, is it never actually gets hot!
You know the usual, cold room, turn on heating, 20 minutes later radiators are sweltering hot, room is boiling hot, turn radiator off again. It's also always hotter by the radiator than elsewhere in the room.
Doesn't work like that with underfloor though. Cold room, switch up temperature. An hour later you think nothing has happened as it's not hot, however, the temperature across the whole room has risen by a couple of degrees, and is now sitting holding a steady temperature by gently topping up the heat every few minutes. It's a lot slower to heat through than normal radiators, but is such a nicer type of heat. The whole room gets warm almost completely evenly, and very gently.
As for cost, we've seen quotes for a central heating system with radiators, fitting and a boiler for about £3000.
We got a brand new condensing boiler with a 2 year warranty for £200.
Boiler flue (wanted it in an odd place so lots of extensions) £80.
Underfloor heating system, pipes, manifold, connectors, pump, clips £450.
Kingspan, sand, cement, battens approx. £150.
Controls (including un-necessary gadget!) £800.
Total fitting if done by tradesman rather than self approx. £1000.
So, on a DIY project, it came out at around £1680, or if you had it fitted for you, probably a similar cost to normal radiators at around £3000.
As it's still a little specialist, I suspect you would get quoted a higher price if you went to a specialist.
I love a project, so this was right up my street. It's quite easy to do DIY, although hard work, and time consuming on your own, but very satisfying when you first turn it on and (most of it) works!
Highly recommended if you're thinking about it.
We've spent a over a year installing it (not full time, obviously).
200 year old house, so floorboards had to be marked, numbered and carefully lifted as they're all odd shapes and sizes, large rooms done half/half to make it easier.
Timber substrate, so battens on the joists, 50mm Kingspan cut to size, pipes laid on top, pack with sand/cement mix, and floorboards re-laid on top.
The whole flat comes to about 140 m^2, so there actually wasn't that much to do, but flippin' heck, it was hard work.
We have a 'zone' for each room, bathroom and en-suite have electric underfloor (wasn't worth a water zone for 1.5m^2) and zoned towel rail, all other rooms have wet underfloor.
We have a manifold for the heating hidden behind a panel in the bathroom, and the controls and boiler in a cupboard in the en-suite.
For controls, we went for Heatmiser;
http://www.heatmiser.co.uk/
and it's superb kit.
A touch-screen thermostat in each room, with a temperature profile set up specifically for each room so heating is on/off at certain times of day.
We also went for the central control unit;
which is a bit over the top, but a good gadget!
To give you an idea how it works with 'zoned' heating;
6am to 8am - temperature is set to be comfortable in the bedroom at around 20 degrees. System will auto-learn how long it takes to get from one temperature to another, so will start up more efficiently as time goes on.
7am to 8am - temperature in en-suite is set to be comfortable, towel radiator and tiles are nice and warm, get out of the shower on to a warm floor with a warm towel.
8am - 9am Temperature in the kitchen/lounge set to 20 degrees for brekky.
Home time - Lounge set to 21 degrees from 5pm to 11pm.
Bedroom set at 19 degrees from 10pm to 12pm, then fall back to 17 degrees overnight.
Hallway set to constant 19 degrees throughout the day, fallback to 17 degrees overnight.
It sounds like a lot of heating, but it's only heating the room you're actually using, rather than the whole place, so works out very efficient.
One thing we did find odd, is it never actually gets hot!
You know the usual, cold room, turn on heating, 20 minutes later radiators are sweltering hot, room is boiling hot, turn radiator off again. It's also always hotter by the radiator than elsewhere in the room.
Doesn't work like that with underfloor though. Cold room, switch up temperature. An hour later you think nothing has happened as it's not hot, however, the temperature across the whole room has risen by a couple of degrees, and is now sitting holding a steady temperature by gently topping up the heat every few minutes. It's a lot slower to heat through than normal radiators, but is such a nicer type of heat. The whole room gets warm almost completely evenly, and very gently.
As for cost, we've seen quotes for a central heating system with radiators, fitting and a boiler for about £3000.
We got a brand new condensing boiler with a 2 year warranty for £200.
Boiler flue (wanted it in an odd place so lots of extensions) £80.
Underfloor heating system, pipes, manifold, connectors, pump, clips £450.
Kingspan, sand, cement, battens approx. £150.
Controls (including un-necessary gadget!) £800.
Total fitting if done by tradesman rather than self approx. £1000.
So, on a DIY project, it came out at around £1680, or if you had it fitted for you, probably a similar cost to normal radiators at around £3000.
As it's still a little specialist, I suspect you would get quoted a higher price if you went to a specialist.
I love a project, so this was right up my street. It's quite easy to do DIY, although hard work, and time consuming on your own, but very satisfying when you first turn it on and (most of it) works!
Highly recommended if you're thinking about it.
Dr_Gonzo said:
Sounds great. Do you have any idea what the running costs of a system like this would be compared to a normal CH system?
I've been told with a good new boiler, it's approximately around 30-40% cheaper to run the radiators.Part of the problem with radiators is that you end up heating the bricks in the wall as much as the room itself. They can also get in the way with furniture, and are a little ugly in a Regency town house!
Apparently, condensing boilers work best running little and often, which is basically what underfloor does.
Something I forgot to mention;
The underfloor heating has it's own 'circuit'.
Hot water goes in to a thermostatic mixer.
Then through pipes under the floor, so gets back to the manifold slightly cooler.
This is the clever bit....
The thermostat takes the cooler water, and mixes it with a bit more hot water from the boiler to 'top up' the heat level.
Water then re-circulates, etc.
Basically, with a normal boiler system, you get very hot water coming out of the boiler, and slightly less hot water returning to the system.
With underfloor, the 'return' to the boiler is almost cold!
It re-uses all the hot/warm water and re-circulates directly around the underfloor pipes, so just spits out cold water to go back to the boiler for re-heating.
When we first turned it on, I thought it wasn't working, as only the feed was hot, and the return was cold!
I guess this doesn't save a huge amount of energy, but all the little bits added together....
Howitzer said:
We are doing a self build and the underfloor heating with a inteligent control system is one of the most exciting parts of the build for me, the costs you mentioned are very pleasing aswell.
Sounded like a fun project!
Dave!
Hey Dave,Sounded like a fun project!
Dave!
It was actually a really satisfying project!
I would completely recommend it. It's a bit of a PITA getting the pipes under the floorboards and leading back to the central manifold, as the pipes are quite stiff, and need a bit of persuasion to get them settled in....
We ended up with about 250m of 16mm plastic pipe under our floors!
It's well worth having the proper 'intelligent' system, it really isn't that expensive.
From memory, the touch screen room thermostats were around £50 each, the central control touch screen with the little stylus isn't actually required (didn't tell Mrs Maser), and was around £200. You also need a central control box to make the wiring easy, which is about £90. These are a great bit of kit, all the controls for boiler, underfloor pump, valve, system pump, thermostats are all wired in to one single box, which makes the installation really very easy.
Thermostats are installed with completely standard Cat5 network cable, 6 wire system for power / switch / network control.
If you're thinking of installing this kit, it's well worth putting the network cables in the wall before you decorate, it would be hard work to do it afterwards....
If you need any help of pics of the install, just let me know!
Dupont666 said:
got any linkys to any of the things you bought for those prices?
Also maybe the DIY instructions, etc?
Sounds like a good price.
Where did you get the condensing boiler for that price?
Underfloor kit (manifold, pipe, pump, clips etc.) from Revel Underfloor.Also maybe the DIY instructions, etc?
Sounds like a good price.
Where did you get the condensing boiler for that price?
DIY instructions for the manifold etc. come with the kit.
DIY instructions for installing the pipework under the floors is easily found online, and varies for your type of floor.
Key thing is to have good insulation under the pipework, and pack all around the pipework either with cement (if it's concrete substrate), or sand/cement mix.
Boiler from ebay, brand new with a warranty, silly price!
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