[Closed] anyone got advice on Underfloor Heating?

Im fairly sure that building control will not allow you to heat your garden room, but you can always do it after its been signed off.

Electric u/floor heating is easy to install but wont on its own heat a large room. If your running a combi boiler you could consider piped u/floor heating which is much more effective but also much costlier and would have to go down before you concrete/ screed and so would be apparent to building control.

If you're having wooden flooring, it will act as a reasonably good insulator to the UFH, meaning it won't be very effective. Go for tiles if having UFH and you will get far greater heat transfer.

Electric can be used for a primary heat source and it's very effective, provided you use the correct type.The matt types are essentially background/comfort heating and generally their output is designed as such.

The cable types can be tailored to suit the application by adjusting the distance between the laid cables. I've fitted a few cable types into kitchens and they're pretty good. The spacing is usually about 40-50mm for primary heat.

I use these kits, great service, very healpful and as good as anything at four times the price

[url=www.warmsoles.co.uk/cable_kits-631.html]Warmsoles[/url]

They also have an ebay shop, which is where I get it from, have a look at item number 120464682858

For larger area's, wet UFH is always the way to go. It can go down into a self leveling screed, over your concrete slab. It needs careful setting up though to get right.

We have a water system in our house plumbed into the central heating. Very effective once it is warm, but it isn't instant so you have to mess about with your central heating to get it right.

Having the heating on all the time but with a lower set point gets it up the initial temperature (but this takes days), once you have got the concrete slab warmed through the system shuts off to the extent that we don't have the heating on all day in the winter.

Switching it on and off twice a day doesn't work.

We have an "engineered oak" floor on it (oak with a multi directional plywood base) that doesn't expand/contract with the changes in temperature.

Really good on the whole, but it was bloody cold for the first winter because we weren't running it properly.

What's a garden room? Is that another phrase for a conservatory?

We have water-based underfloor heating in one room. Unfortunately the builder buried the pipes a bit too deep and it takes about 24 hours to heat up. You also need an extra heat source (radiator or electric fire) in the room when it's really nippy.

Otherwise, good. If you have a cat they might not want to go in there when it's on.

Thanks for the great advice so far.

'Garden room' is just what we've been calling it and a bit misleading. Not a conservatory: basically a single storey extension with patio doors: blockwork cavity walls and fully insulated tiled roof.

BTW we'd be getting a new condensor boiler anyway.

Shame about the insulating effect of wood: had our heart set on a nice dark wood floor...

UFH and wood can work very well together, but as Harry said, you really must use an engineered product. Even if a flooring company tells you they can re-kiln the product (i.e. "dry" the timber out a bit more for UFH) it has a relatively high chance of going wrong. I know a supplier in Bristol that sells an engineered floor in lots of different finishes. Come to think of it, whereabouts are you? I can quote to supply and fit it.

deadlydarcy: unfortunately a way from Bristol: I'm in Sheffield

DeeW

I had a water based under floor heating system installed 2 years ago in our new extension. Similar to youself single storey, proper roof and walls with 6m glass doors.

The room is the warmest in the house with no extra radiators. wouldn't recommend wood, we used natural stone floor.

The dog thinks she died and went to heaven, she lies on the floor cooking.

Did a lot off homework on it first and still made mistakes,

e-mail me and ill give you my phone number if you want to ask any questions, would take me too long to type.

Stone is better than than timber, but not so much so that you should decide not to have it if you want it. Try www.chauncey.co.uk and look at their tectonic flooring. They have a sales office up north as well. Once you know the product you're looking for, you'll most likely find other sources of it elsewhere.

We decided against underfloor heating in the end but certainly the electric stuff looked best, at least to take the edge off it. For the underfloor pipes it seemed to me that you have to install a manifold to mix the hot water with cold to stop you burning your feet, is that correct? And then this tepid water gets pumped back into your central heating system? That seemed a bit inefficient to me, although I could be wrong about that process.

We didn't go for the manifold option which would have allowed us to control it independently of the radiators because we had nowhere to put it. Ours runs off a radiator valve recessed into the wall, and is controlled by the house thermostat/timer.

It doesn’t burn your feet because the heat dissipates evenly throughout the base so the floor gets warm (30°C ish) rather than hot. The base was quite complex with additional insulation below the heating pipework to reduce running cost. Foundation – concrete – insulation – concrete – heating pipework – concrete – backing foam – wooden floor.

We got the special floor timber from Travis Perkins. It cost about £3000 for 280 ft² including a foam backing material.

Just seen this post and have some useful recent advice...

We did an extension - brick built with pitched slate roof - approx 12ft x 8ft. We were going to lay underfloor heating (water piped) but decided against it for two reasons. The first because we wanted to lay wood over and lots of advice said it wasn't as effective due to the insulatory properties of the wood. Also it would have meant digging up parts of the room we didn't need to (a simple cost-saving decision).

Eventually we looked at [url= http://www.discreteheat.co.uk/?gclid=CL3vrbmY85wCFZMU4wodz06VkQ ]Discrete Heat - as seen on Dragon's Den[/url]. It simply replaces traditional radiators on the central heating system. The main advantages over underfloor is the heat is above the insulator and the main benefit over rads is that we are not restricted about where we put furniture. Also there is no risk of leaks under the floor that could go un-noticed.

We haven't experienced a winter with it yet, but when tested it feels really warm and achieves a good consistent heat throughout the room.

Price-wise it is about halfway between underfloor and radiator cost (assuming standard radiators).

Sheffield based? Get in touch with these guys:

http://ukunderfloorheating.co.uk/

They are all riders and know their stuff so well worth getting in touch for a quote.