Who here has it?
How do you rate it?

I’ve started dismantling my house as part of a ground floor extension project and am thinking of fitting wet underfloor heating downstairs.

Will be split in to 3 zones.

Do you find it is warm enough in use?

I have wet underfloor heating in an extention I put in a couple of years ago. It’s great. Definitely warm enough. Only downside is the temperature control – if you decide it is too warm then you can’t turn it down – you can change the thermostat but it will take hours to cool so you have to dump heat by opening windows. And sometimes if you come in from the cold you miss an instant high temp heat source as it can take a bit of time to warm up. It’s odd, you feel warm without feeling a heat source. It’s very efficient though. I shut it down in summer and only have it on in winter.

I guess if you’re unsure you can always lay the plastic piping even if you don’t connect it up – the matierals are cheap to buy – basically some plastic piping and, insulation panels and screed, and install, so you can leave the unconnected ends somewhere if you want to hook it up sometime in the future.

We’ve just put it in a 1-bed 70m2 annex we had built for me mum.

Early days, more than warm enough but a bit dear on electricity (no gas), although we’ve had the builders back in and better set up the temps/splits (4 zones).

Its excellent. But planning and specification is everything.

These guys were very useful when I spec’d and installed mine

http://www.underfloorheating1.co.uk/

They will help design and spec for you.

We have it in 50msq extension. It’s definitely warm enough but you need a degree in hydrophysics to work out how to get the best out of it, as stated above.

I’ve been in a rental property for 7 months with wet underfloor heating, floors are concrete I believe. At first I thought it was me not using it properly, but I’ve done what everyone tells me I should do ie on all the time and it’s still crap. Feet are always lovely and warm, but it just can’t get the rooms warm enough if the outside temp drops below about 5 degrees (four massive windows in the lounge/kitchen). I suspect it’s just poorly and cheaply put together apartments with heating that can’t cope with what it’s being tasked to deal with. I’ve also realised it’s not just me, a few neighbours have raised eyebrows in recognition, when I’ve mentioned it.
From my unfortunate experience, definitely do what stoner says and get in experts who’ll spec you something that will work. Can’t wait to go home to radiators.
This is the lounge

Best thing I’ve done in my renovation project, but the devil is in the details. Massively recommend talking to UFH1 as mentioned above, they’re really helpful and prices are hard to beat.

We’re about to build an extension and are debating how to heat the main room, which will have a tiled floor. My concern is that with water underfloor the latency of the high thermal mass floor will mean the temperature of that room will rarely match the rest of the house, which is all on radiators. Anyone agree?

Don’t want the floor to feel cold so now thinking about electric heating (just below the tiles, not heating a big slab) to supplement radiators.

We’ve got it throughout the house (new build, air to liquid heatpump) and stick it in reverse during the summer months

We had it installed in a basement conversion and it’s lovely.
True, it’s not responsive but because the basement is obviously well insulated it just stays at a pretty constant temperature. Walking barefoot on a warm bathroom floor in the winter is a thing of beauty!
Plus it means you don’t need to hang radiators on the walls which helps when you’re placing furniture.

In the photos above do you have too much furniture on the floor? Hard to tell but we try to stop putting too much stuff under the beds as it blocks the heat.

first problem there banana is the lack of insulation. Im assuming those are solid original walls, probably with no DPC. Single pane windows?

Old warehouse with mezzanine floor that has open voids up to upper level?

From the view it looks like you’re not on the ground floor, so unlikely you have substantial insulated thermal mass below your feet to smooth out temperatures and ensure heat is going where it’s needed.

That will take substantial Watts of output to maintain at temperature and doing that through the floor will either make the floor uncomfortably hot (and possibly bad for the floor finish) or you’ll just never get the emission high enough at low temp.

Unfortunately converted warehouses are terrible to keep warm. Both my brother and a friend have one and they have to pump a lot of energy in to keep them comfortable.

We also had it in a rental flat for few months. It created a nice ambient temperature, but never got really warm for cold days. A guy came to service the boiler and he said the problem with it, is it only really is able to run at +20oC above the background temperate. So if you have a few days of sub-zero (we live in the north) the rooms can never properly heat up. Also, dont have a floor standing kitchen bin – or if you do, take the rubbish out very regularly – coming back 24 hours after putting some chicken in the bin led to a very funky smelling flat! Have to say, we are enjoying radiators again! And they are most useful for drying clothes!

The lack of radiators on the wall is probably the only positive I can really see. Oh that and lying on the floor doing my pilates was nicer!

first problem there banana is the lack of insulation. Im assuming those are solid original walls, probably with no DPC. Single pane windows?

Exactly….. frankly I think you’ve got no hope with just UFH with those walls

My concern is that with water underfloor the latency of the high thermal mass floor will mean the temperature of that room will rarely match the rest of the house, which is all on radiators. Anyone agree?

Yep, but if you run the UFH on a completely separate schedule to your radiators you should be fine.

We’re thinking of knocking through from our snug (with stove) into the kitchen/breakfast to make one pretty massive room.

The floor is currently unheated and I’m utterly fed up with having cold feet. But the cost to dig up the existing floor and lay wet UFH would be well over £7k which is a bit pointless when the kitchen will be mostly a 4.5m island unit – so our kitchen guy has said to save our money for his extraordinarily expensive creation and fit electric UFH.
Although it will cost a bit more to run, we have solar PV which will help a bit and it’s not really going to be the sole heat source and will probably just make the tiles feel a lot more comfortable.

Exactly….. frankly I think you’ve got no hope with just UFH with those walls

TBH I assumed everyone would be saying ” what do you expect with those windows?”, rather than the walls. They are double glazed btw. Anyway, thankfully after 4th March it’ll be for someone else to put up with. Dreading the next heating bill tho.

So if you have a few days of sub-zero (we live in the north) the rooms can never properly heat up.

This is not true, I think I live bit further north and our underfloor heating has no trouble keeping the house warm at -20C.
Then again, it is not just about the heating, the whole system (the house) needs to be designed to work together.

I’s all about designing the system properly. No reason why UFH shouldn’t be able to maintain the temperature in the room any less well than any other heating source.

Great! well thats all good news to hear.

It will be going in existing timber joist floor on metal spreader plates with 75mm kingspan beneath it and then being built into the new ground floor extension solid floor.
Plans are currently being drawn up for complete works of project, will collect them on Thursday, so can get sent over to get specced by UFH1.

Thanks