Electric underfloor heating (lose cable system)

[AnthonyB]

Please help me!!!

I'm in the process of fitting out our new bathroom and need advice on underfloor heating.

The area to be covered is 14.5 m2 but this is reduced to 10.1m2 after deleting bath, shower tray and toilet.

My question is which make should I go for. there seems about 10 differant ones on the market all around the £300 mark (apart from 'warmup' which is about £550)

It will be fed from a fused spur on an rcd protected ring main. It's timber floor with 20mm insulation board. the finished floor will be tiled.

Can anyone tell me which one to buy, or indeed if it really matters as they all seem to offer at least a 10 year warreny

Thank you for any comments on this matter.

Anthony

 

[ericmark]

Electric under floor heating is split into 3 broad types.
Fixed length loop system.
Adjustable length multi- loop system.
Chemical system.
The latter changes resistance as it warms up so is to some extent self regulating and should in error you place something like a laundry basket on an area it will limit over heating so is best of three.
Second and more important for bathrooms some have a earthed outer built in so need no extra earth mat, but others for use in a bathroom need an earthed mat placing over the top of the heating mat.
We fitted a fixed length non chemical type with built in earth in my Mothers wet room as a wet room one would not place anything on the floor. It was to ensure the floor dried and for that it works of sorts but as to heating room it is useless any hotter one would not want to stand on the dry floor once wet it quickly cools and takes longer than expected to re-heat and dry the floor and in winter without the towel rail the room is not hot enough.
Also within first few months the thermostat failed although in a tube we were not able to with draw it and renew so now uses standard roomstat. So in all very disappointed.
Also first one was damaged by builders, and whole floor had to be removed and refitted to replace.
Eric

 

[AnthonyB]

Thanks Eric but I was really posting in this forum to ask what manufacturer of underfloor heating to buy as there are so many that cost about the same. Do you get what you pay for or, can you just buy the cheepest?

AnthonyB

 

[mikeyd]

When I looked in to this 2 years ago warmup was as cheap as all the rest so I went with their loose wire stuff In our kitchen and an on-suite. I'm doing the bathroom soon and will be using warmup again, mainly because I don't want to work out how to set another type of thermostat/programmer

I was surprised by the price you quoted and googled a price list and it does seem there is a lot more choice now and you can get other brands cheaper but these lot www.fountaindirect.co.uk have 10m2 of warmup at £400ish. If you could get away with 9.9m2 it would be £360 with the stat. I have no experience of any other manufacturer but can just say we have had no problems with the warmup kit.

By the way at the time it seemed like a small fortune for decent flexible powdered adhesive to stick the boards and the tiles down but I was advised it was important to use decent stuff. I used Bal in the on-suite but used wickes own stuff in the kitchen which seemed pretty similar.