Has anyone regretted underfloor heating?

I’ve got a kitchen around 20sq/m with a small utility and shower/toilet in the same space. At the moment there’s a new slab gone down with 100mm insulation in over the area, there’s also height enough (I think) to squeeze a wet system in. Flooring is yet to be decided so could be tile or laminate.

I was going down this road before speaking to a mate who advised against, laminate movement/ages to heat up with tile so rads still needed…

Has anyone spent the cost and thought they’d not bother again?

It’d be fed from a combi within the kitchen

We’ve got underfloor with tiles throughout downstairs. Your mate is talking nonsense.

Any advice on min depths under thresholds would be welcome.

Thanks TB!

Not sure about that sorry.

ages to heat up

True, but generally the idea with a well insulated house is that it is on pretty much continuously at a low temperature to maintain the temp, rather than having a hot radiator in the corner of a room that goes on and off twice a day.

We moved to a house with underfloor heating.

It’s wet system under tiles in the kitchen area, about 20m2.

He is right that it does take ages to warm up but we leave it on 24/7 in the winter.

It keeps a background warmth for the whole house, we rarely use the radiators upstairs, as it’s a well insulated house.

We really like it but it was a bit of a pain this year, as we had a couple of cold snaps this May, after we had switched it off and it wasn’t worth putting it on, as things would of warmed up before it took effect.

We really like it.

Just to add, if you go for it, get an external sensor for the thermostat, that is installed in the floor.

When we converted one of our barns into a bungalow for my Mum a few years ago we put a wet system in, circa 100m2.

We’re off the gas grid so electric.

Keeps everything warm, never switches off so perfect for a +85 y/o in rural Scotland but bloody expensive to run as electricity only.

Wouldn’t do it again and TBH the long term plan is one of the kids will take our place and the conversion is currently our old-age plan – we’ll be putting in something else when the time comes…

Don’t put mat/pipes under cupboards/bin!

We had an electric system in a small en-suite, all good until it went pop. Then it’s tiles up and relay, so we didn’t replace like for like.

We have it through out the ground floor here in London and the same at our place in Kerry.

In London it is electric under oak boards and in Ireland wet under slate tiles.

With the london one I would get rid of it if I could (and we may yet do so) and put the rads back in. It is ineffective and i don’t really see what the benefit over radiators is, more so as one tranche (the hallway) of it has now packed in. Wood is also a poor surface to put over ufh.

The wet system in Ireland suffers because we are not there all the time, I suspect if we were it would be more suitable, as others say it’s not instant heat which is kinda what we need in an old house we don’t stay in regularly.

TLDR I’m not a complete fan by any means. You need to plan the layout and use – will you need quick heat? and it may work for you.

Put it in at previous home, didn’t this time…. (well I have in bathrooms, but it never goes on)

Reason being….  it’s kinda too good !!

On the basis that, when you move into a room that doesn’t have it, that room feels cold even though the CH is on fully.

Haven’t missed UF in the new home, pleased with my choice.

I’ve got it, ~230m2 downstairs spread over 7 rooms.  It’s brilliant and runs on a learning thermostat (like most now).  My only slight regret is screwing up the thermostat placement in tha main room ~110m2 and the original “snug” ~35m2, the former needed more than 1 themostat/sensor and the later there is overspill heat from the corridor that affects the reading  – make sure you get those bits right!!

It’s not that hard to install (all wet), though depends on your boiler set up as you wont use the main rad lines, it will be on it’s own “zone” with switch valve.  get the temps right and you’ll just have a comfy house without warm and cold spots.

edit to add – the downstoars bedroom and snug are carpet, with the rest all tiled.

Ground Source Heat Pump and UFH downstairs for us (GSHP also provides hot water for Rads upstairs). We leave it on all the time as that suits the pump and it’s fantastic. Runs under engineered oak floors and had no movement or issues. Much prefer it to rads.

15 years later and other than a few maintenance issues with the pump, no problems to report. Wouldn’t go back although we were short of options as have no gas here, and we certainly didn’t want a simple electric UFH solution.

We had electric underfloor heating installed in a kitchen, under tiles. It was crap, the room was always cold.

Thanks all, I’ll keep going along my original thinking to install

Typical minimum screed depth is 65mm. Lower than that and you start to lose the benefit of the slab holding the heat and increase the risk of screwing through it if you do happen to fix something down to the floor.

Daytime temp set to 21degC Overnight you set it back to say 18degC. In a modern property it shouldn’t drop to this then less energy needed to put it back up.

It’s first choice in a screed on the Ground Floor. Timber overlay systems I probably wouldn’t bother as expensive and don’t gain the thermal mass.

Much better than radiators on ASHP or GSHP systems in modern properties.

Put electric in our FF bathroom and regretted not putting in wet. Should have done but time was short to get all the work done to move in.

Try looking at NuHeat LoPro underfloor heating. Works for me. Likely not as efficient as a sealed polymer system, but much less build height and super easy to install.

We inherited three electrical ones. We don’t use them as the cost is ridiculous. Not strictly true, we use the one in the kitchen dining room. Occasionally when it’s really cold. I’d probably go water if I was installing. But then I’d panic about leaks. Solid floors retain the heat.

Installed wet UFH in living room and bathrooms. Should have put it in throughout. Nice, clean walls without rads.

with an insulated slab that should be good. Ours is over insulated boards and under wooden flooring in the living room and stone and tiles in the bathrooms.

My mate did the first winter in his lovely new build when he turned it off as he was going away. The weather had dropped to below zero by the time he got back and they shivered for 24 hrs till the house got back up to a liveable temp.!

Schoolboy error but overall he loves it.

It will take longer to heat up but also it will take longer to cool down. You just need to make sure and control it correctly. Turning it on before you want to be warm and tiring it off before you think you do. Although you shouldn’t turn it off just set it back a few degrees.
it needs its own programmable room thermostat and zone valve as timings will be different from radiators. How much earlier you need to turn on and off largely depends on your building and you will have to experiment to find the optimum.
Tiles or vinyl are preferable as they add little thermal resistance but you can use wood too. Consult the max temp of the floor finish.
Make sure you can get enough heat into all the rooms too as sometimes small rooms don’t have enough floor area to provide enough heat in poorly insulated and draughty buildings.
thermal movement shouldn’t be an issue either, although I do see a lot of systems poorly set up with the maximum flow temp too high.
I’ve installed underfloor heating since the mid 80’s and have done well over a hundred systems maybe more. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone tell me they wish they didn’t have it.
And don’t use electric mat unless you want to burn £20 notes to be warm……

We’ve got an electric one in France. We never put it in, it was already there. It’s across the whole ground floor area which is open plan and that area is split into two thermostatically controlled areas.  As it’s a holiday home we rarely use it. If we arrive during the colder months we find it takes far too long to warm up enough to make a difference and the electric meter spins at a frightening rate. However, if we do leave it on it does make the room quite cosy.

I’ve got it in my bathroom ground/basement and by the door.  That’s about 30m2 in total , stops the house freezing. Always ‘on’ and the one in the main floor doesn’t actually turn on too often.  That’s in a house in Norway.

100’s of m2 in the UK is ridiculous, and a complete misuse of technology.   You set a temp and leave it, no messing around day/night on/off etc….

What is a misuse of technology, I assume you are talking about electric mat?

Wet heated by gas under karndean all across the ground floor here, including carpeted lounge, four zones with balancers and manifold under stairs fed from combi boiler in adjoining garage plus each zone has a wall mounted thermostat. Not under kitchen cabinets , american fridge  cooker etc obviously. It is absolutely brilliant , I would have it in any house I move to . Downstairs loo is always cosy in winter, I have bare feet all the time. We wish it was  upstairs in family bathroom. Walls are clutter free of those inconveniently placed radiators is a big plus for us. This is a well insulated house and karndean is not a cold floor any way, we don’t notice any issues with slow warm up but I guess you get used to managing it as some one above said, turn on early and turn off before you need to is probably the way. Twelve years and counting with no issues yet !!

It’s a thing that should not be seen in isolation – great insulation all round (not least below the slab..) and airtightness needed, as are internal and external sensors with a ‘clever’ thermostat system over multiple zones, couple with ASHP/GSHP etc.

Then it’s wonderful.

Electric mat in a poorly insulated building and poorly controlled = blimey, that’s a big energy bill.

Got it, 55m sq across the entire ground floor – ASHP with rads upstairs. Just leave it on 24×7 to do its stuff. I adjust the heat curve a couple of times per year and that’s it. Problems arise when people try and run them like conventional heating, switching on and off – the point is to use the floor slab as a thermal mass.

I’d consider a wet UFH in a modern well-insulated house, my own experience of electric UFH in my bathroom (that isn’t very well insulated and it’s above a garage) is that after running for 4+ hours it takes the chill off the floor tiles but very gets them warm let along the room itself warm, even running it 24×7 during winter didn’t help (I expect I was heating the garage more…). Haven’t used it in a few years as it was £80+ a month not even running it 24×7. I did also have it installed in a wall (separate circuit) instead of a towel radiator and it works great there…

100’s of m2 in the UK is ridiculous, and a complete misuse of technology.   You set a temp and leave it, no messing around day/night on/off etc….

Is that referring to my post?

It’s a barn conversion (bungalow) and the pipes were put down to spec (slab/insulation etc) in each room, with controllers in each room/space, and never switched on/off.

As said the only issue is cost, but it’s my +85 y/o Mum in there so each ‘control’ is set so the rooms’ are the temp she wants and we suck up the running cost – rural Scotland too, so cold enough (in fact cold enough here that we put the bloody fire in on Saturday evening in our house next door).

If it’s running off an electric boiler you could put an ASHP in and in theory get the electric heating bill down by two thirds and match a mains gas boiler.

Nuances of system and actual on site efficiency though may skew this.

Whether this is worth the investment and stress getting it done is another matter.

We have wet UFH heating right through the house, upstairs and downstairs. We just leave it all on all the time with the thermostat set and it keeps the house at a very consistent temp. We have had to change a few valves over the years but no other issues.

Having said that our house is about 10yrs old with very good insultation and built on concrete slabs. I wouldn’t put it anything other than a new build.

Wet in our kitchen/family area and its bloody amazing.  We have Karndean/Amtico floor 6 plus years no issues.  This area has its own zone snd thermostat.  We keep it quite low.  Wish the whole house was done

If it’s running off an electric boiler you could put an ASHP in and in theory get the electric heating bill down by two thirds and match a mains gas boiler.

Nuances of system and actual on site efficiency though may skew this.

Whether this is worth the investment and stress getting it done is another matter.

When we built it ASHP was still 1st-adopter territory tech – costs currently are still a bit prohibitive as a ‘refresh’, plus finding folk interested in the work who know what they’re doing.

We have wet UFH heating throughout the downstairs with large format ceramic tiles over the top of the slab, done as part of a big renovation extension project.

to answer the OP, no don’t regret it at all. Wish I’d had the funds to do the whole house wet UFH.

Can’t comment on cost etc, but as heating goes, with a super insulated house, it’s fantastic super easy to use, super clean look to the walls etc, without sticky out rads on the walls and the house is just lovely and warm. Much better then traditional rads