"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
IMM wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
jerrybuilt wrote:
SC wrote:
we wanted to look at underflooor heating.
Any personal experience out there? Is it costly to run?
I like the idea as this will be a family room and we have
3 kids under 4, they spend so much time rollling round the
floor I thought it may be a good idea to warm the floor...
Any sane thoughts appreciated
I'm afraid that every time I have visited someone whose
house had underfloor, I have been very glad to get out
of it! I find it a horrible, very uncomfortable way of
heating. I wouldn't worrk about the children playing on
the floor, use clothes or carpets.
I have to say I entirely disagree. The warmth is just simply all
pervasive: There are no cold spots and its a delight to walk on with
bare feet.
The scret is to have a lot of pipework in there,
and not to run it too hot.
The secret is:
- not to have cold spots in the floor.
Yes.
You are getting it.
Lots of pipework can give cold spots.
Usual strange language and gibberish
from the resident moron.
You know nothing of UFH.
The trick is to lay planty of pipe in a pattern that alternates warmer
incoming with coooler ougoing. Double wound spirals do this. See
www.polyplumb.co.uk
You are are learning.
Santoprene double two-way pipe eliminates cold spots.
And cots a bloody fortune, and is
completely unnecessary. Once again IMM
is seduced by plausible sales literature.
Santoprene works wonderfully. The only problem is that there is no oxygen
barrier. Once again you display ignorance.
When I was self-levelling the floor,
I switched on teh UF to get it to
dry faster.
Never do that!!!
The psaces between the pipes were
in all cases colder than
the pipes - no matter whether on the
flow or return side.
Conclusion. Double pipe is a waste of money.
What experience do you have of this? He means counterflow two-way
santoprene pipe. There is also three-way santoprene. It works brilliantly.
Close laying of a lot of
pipe is what gets you the most even heat.
Using a counterflow spiral is the best, but more difficult to lay,
arrangement.
Also what
configuration of pipework layout matters.
Yep. Running pipes up the walls does
not heat your floor.
Failed!
One does assume teh abuilty to read
the polyplumb website, which has a lot
of general rarher useful hints on how
to achieve uniform heating as well
as some product specific stuff youy can ignore if you want.
Ployplumb offer a very basic system, which is not recommended.
- Have it well controlled. This may be a pump with a modulating mixer
valve
for each zone . Some zones may be slaved to others.
- Having it at low temp does of course help.
Underfloor heating is not to everyone's taste. The prime reason for
having
it is to eliminate rads.
********.
Do you mean you want rads?
Its a good reason, but not necessarily the prime one.
Failed again! It is.
Underfloor heating IS a radiotor - a floor
sized one.
You don't say.
Because the heating is uniform
If it is designed and installed correctly.
and low, there are no real convection currents
What!!! failed again!
and cold low level draughts. It gives the feeling of a mild summers day,
rather than a cold winters one, if the house is adequately insulated.
The big drawback is the lag.
Good, encouraging.
From utter cold (been away from Xmas sort
of cold, with no heating on) it make take almost
a day to get up to temperature.
A big negative indeed.
Answer is to leave running at 'frost stat' settings.
Conversely it stays warmer longer - in screed
designs anyway - so you may end up losing
heat whilst you are out, that you didn't want to.
??? Uh!
Its not 'instant' heat. Its slow gentle warmth.
Good, encouraging.
There is nowhere to hang
your wet socks either.
A big disadvantage of course.
In general winter use it seems to want an hour or
so lead time from the rest of the heating if you
are using a mixire of rads towel rals and UF,
hence the 3 channel controller. I also find the
fluctuations and hysteresis of the thermostat
more detactable with UF - perhaps because
it IS so even.
Uh!! ?? Do you eamn yoiu feel cold spots? This is the problem. You need
proper PID controllers to get a proper even temp from UFH.
By far and away the nicest form of heating
I havbe ever had,
I find that amazing , as yours appear naff.
and I wish I could have done it under the
wood floors upstairs, but mostly they
had'nt the depth for it.
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