Re: Underfloor heating

[chris@xxxxxxx]

>Yes i would retain rads on the upper 2 floors & cellar. Just
looking at gro=
>und floor as i am about to knock out walls etc. I have full access to
under=
>neath.
>
>What is the ideal temp of water for under floor ? I prefer the rads
cool as=
> i find having them belting hot give me a headache. The new boiler has
dial=
> in temp and the whole house is zoned with my HA.

[snip]

We have UFH installed throughout our (not so) new build.  Ground floor is
beam and block with a chipboard over timber-joist first floor.  No rads
anywhere so we have complete flexibility when it comes to positioning
furniture :-).  I haven't looked recently but if memory serves the flow
temperature is about 55C with the return temp about 40C.  In our case
the boiler feeds a fair sized water tank rather than feeding the UFH
pipes directly.  Apparantly this is more efficient as the boiler is doing
a smaller number of longer burns.  It also gives us a great airing
cupboard.  The room temp can be controlled to + or - 1C but the ground
floor can take about 30mins to come up to temp on a cold morning for
example.
The first floor is a bit more responsive as the timber floor has less
thermal inertia.

When we first fired it up it felt a little odd as the heat is very even;
there are no hotter or colder regions in any of the rooms.  Even at full
blast the floors never really feel warm as the heat is diffused over
such a large area.  It's also completely silent except for the circulating
pump in the utility room and the boiler kicking in now and then.  There's
no thermal "clicking" from metal pipes expanding and contracting.

To retro-fit you'll have to drill holes in the floor joists to thread the
pipes through.  A glance at the Building Regs will tell you where and how
big.  It will take time to fit it but is well within the ability range
of most DIYers.  We only used a plumber to install the boiler and connect
it up.

I'd recommend UFH any day.

Chris.

--
Chris Davenport              chris@xxxxxxx