What is underfloor heating?
Underfloor heating involves the installation of a system (of either pipes or wires) into the floor. The floor, in essence, becomes the entire radiator, heating the room. It warms the room from the ground up and offers improved comfort levels as well as less demand on your heat pump than a traditional radiator system. This is due to underfloor heating having a lower operating temperature (around 40°C) than a radiator system, which normally operates at around 65°C.
What Types of Wet Underfloor Heating are There?
There are broadly two types of wet underfloor heating:
Buried underfloor heating involves placing the pipes into the floor screed. The floor screed is finished, burying the pipes, and the different zones are controlled by the underfloor heating manifold. This is the most efficient wet UFH system, but better suited to extensions and new builds where new floor screeds are required.
Surface mounted underfloor heating involves specialist systems that installed the warm water pipes in insulated panels. They are designed to be low profile, adding just 1.5cm to the floor level, however, this will still cause some issues when retrofitted. These systems tend to be more expensive, too.
What's Better, Electric or Wet Underfloor Heating?
There are two main types of underfloor heating: Wet underfloor heatinIn basic terms, a wet underfloor heating system features pipes, filled by warm water and powered by a boiler or heat pump, concealed within the floor, and typically embedded within a floor screed
. This is the best type of underfloor heating for those building from scratch and/or planning a whole-house system. Electric underfloor heating is often cheaper and easier to install than wet underfloor heating. However, the running costs can be three times higher.
How Does Underfloor Heating Work?
Ironically, perhaps, UFH is actually closer to being a ‘radiator’ than a radiator is. UFH heats the mass of the floor (the screed and the floor finish) and that heat then (mostly) radiates into the room — there is some convection going on but over 80% of heat transfer is by radiation.The effect of this is that UFH heats the room from the ground up, providing even heat across the whole room, eliminating cold spots and thereby providing more comfort. It also means that we feel warmer sooner. As such, if we want to set the temperature of the room at 20°C, a radiator system will need to get the ceiling to 21°C or 22°C for us to feel comfortable while watching telly.With a UFH system, the ceiling can be at 18°C and we will still have a comfortable 20°C at sofa level. According to the Energy Saving Trust, a 1°C reduction in temperature will reduce the heating bill by 10%.
