Underfloor heating is, without doubt, the 21st century way to heat a home. It uses radiant heat technology and warms the people and objects in the room directly from the floor upwards. As with all things, there are pros and cons, but in this case the pros far outweigh the cons.
There are two kinds of underfloor heating, either electric or water based. An electric system uses a heating wire, or a heating mat which has heating wires within it. It is very quick and easy to install and is also less expensive to install than a water-based system. The latter uses water pipes under the floor through which is pumped water heated by a power source such as a boiler, solar power, or possibly an air source or ground source heat pump.
Unfortunately, electricity is not cheap, and the price is only going one way, so even though it costs less to install, overall, a water system is going to be cheaper to run. Once the installation cost is covered, the savings continue forever.
A major benefit of underfloor heating is that once it is installed there is virtually no maintenance required whatsoever. Indeed, most providers will offer warranties for up to 25 years.
Underfloor heating is far superior to a radiator system which will heat the air next to the radiator first. This is why rooms heated this way tend to suffer from cold spots, so the areas nearest the radiator are the hottest while the air in the middle of the room can feel colder. Radiators also tend to move dust around the room together with dust mites. This can have a deleterious effect on people who suffer from asthma or allergies. When you have underfloor heating, it is too warm for the dust mites to live and breathe, so this doesn’t happen.
Another advantage of underfloor heating is that you don’t have radiators on the walls, so you actually have more space in the room, and you can push furniture right up to the wall.
All underfloor heating should be controlled by a dedicated thermostat for each room. This means that you can turn the heating down, or off, in a room that you don’t use much, such as the bedroom during the day. You can also have programmable heat schedules. That means that you don’t have to think about the heating of your home because it will always be at the right temperature at the right time, such as when you come home from work.
It Works With Any Type Of Flooring
Some people do worry about what sort of flooring you can use with underfloor heating, but the fact is that it can work with almost anything. If you are using carpet or underlay, the total tog should not exceed 1.5, otherwise this could have an effect on the heat in the room. Things such as wood or laminate are best as thin and dense as possible.
Underfloor heating systems are quite easy to install, whether in a new build or retrofitting. However, if you are fitting underfloor heating as part of a renovation project, you do have to take account of the fact that you will lose some height in the room because you will need to cover the heating pipes with a screed.
The type of screed that you use, whether in a new project or retrofit, is important. For years now the mainstay of a screed has been a mix of sand and cement, which is often mixed on site and then laid by a worker on hands and knees using a trowel to level it out.
However, today you can use a liquid screed in Oxford, for example, which is far superior to the older material. One of the benefits is that a liquid screed, or flowing screed as it is also known, is so quick to lay. It is delivered to site by the contractor ready mixed and then a pump and a hose are attached, and the screed is simply pumped into place. Installing a screed this way is around 20 times as fast as a labourer can install and level a sand and cement screed. As much as 2,000 square metres can be laid in a single day.
If you were to use a flowing screed in Basildon, another advantage is that it will always totally envelop the heating pipes because of the fact that it is in liquid form, so the heat transfer into the room will be absolutely even. When laying a sand and cement screed it is almost impossible to achieve this, and so there will be places where there are gaps and voids around the pipes which affects the heat transfer.
Yet another benefit is that a liquid screed can be laid more thinly than sand and cement. So, it will heat faster using less energy. In addition, the thermal conductivity of a liquid screed is nearly twice that of sand and cement, again resulting in the use of less energy to heat the room to the required temperature.
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