UFH reliability

ban-all-sheds · 25 Jan 2013

There seems to be a lot of recent topics reporting problems of one sort or another with their electric UFH.

Coincidence?

Are there similar numbers in the plumbing forum about wet systems?

westie101 · 25 Jan 2013

Looking at the thread title BAS, I thought you were going to be talking about digital TV

Scoby_Beasley · 25 Jan 2013

westie101 said:
Looking at the thread title BAS, I thought you were going to be talking about digital TV

Got me as well!! Mind you, when I first saw UFH I thought folks were doing a typo of UHF

ban-all-sheds · 25 Jan 2013

Sorted

nickp34 · 25 Jan 2013

Not had a problem with our actual UFH system which was installed in 2006 apart from with the thermostat controllers. We are on our second controller since installation and the second one has recently developed a fault. They are Timeguard controllers and from our experience they dont seem to be reliable / well made.

stillp · 25 Jan 2013

In early January I spent a night in a hotel, with the window open and the fan on but still too hot for comfort. The problem was UFH in the bathroom, which had no control. When I complained, I was told they used to have thermostats but the customers caused failures by kept messing about with them, so the thermostats were all replaced by relays driven by a central timer!

dhutch · 25 Jan 2013

My parents house sole heating is from night storage underfloor electric, but in 25 years ago, and has now even any problems since dispight them going for the cheaper less protected version of the cable which was 'not suitable for burying in concrete. Although they did bury them themselves rather than have the builders do it.

The system is 'controled' using the induvidial circuit breakers in the CU and a imersion heater timer working through a relay. They did have a analog 'weather watcher' control unit but it never worked for them and was disconected very early on. Im sure there are systems that could be used now to automate it, but there so used to adjusting it and its such a long time period for temperature change it takes very little effort and works very well.

This year the replaced the relay as it had started getting louder, but thats the first replacment needed.

Daniel

SimonH2 · 26 Jan 2013

Yes, there are problems with wet systems, but like the electric ones - unless there was a faulty cable (or pipe), or it's been damaged (eg with a wayward drill), then it's going to keep working for "a long time".

The mains things is you only get to hear about the faulty ones. People don't generally start threads with "my UFH is working fine, what should I do with it"

Like electric, wet systems also suffer from "installation issues". One I spotted over in the plumbing section started with "the pipes were laid, left full of water and pressurised, now they've laid the concrete the pressure has gone" ... and added, "it was minus <something brrrr inducing>" at the time. The response was "tell the builder to dig out the floor again, and not to try laying concrete again until it's well above freezing" - or words to that effect.

Norcon · 26 Jan 2013

bas wrote

Are there similar numbers in the plumbing forum about wet systems?

Nope. The plumbers know what they are doing.

ericmark · 27 Jan 2013

I had stopped in a house with under floor heating in the bath room and it was great. Clearly the guy installing knew what he was doing. So when my mother lost her leg and we wanted to install a wet room we stipulated under floor heating. It was a failure but not all down to it being under floor heating so I will list them for the reader to decide.

*) Original install damaged by builder requiring lift and relay.
*) Idea was floor would dry quickly but once wet from shower it cooled down to much and recovery time too long. Add that sculptured tiles were fitted to give more grip which held the water longer it took 1/2 hour for floor to dry by which time Mum long gone.
*) Set to maximum temperature where one could walk on the tiles without also having a towel rail on the room was cold. The extractor would need changing for heat recovery unit if it was sole heating method.
*) The thermostat only lasted about a year each.
*) When the floor sensor failed it got stuck in the pocket.

I have looked at other systems one local one shown here.

The main point is it was built like that in the first place and not an add on.

There are systems today

this is designed to under heat a seat but could be adapted to under floor. The main idea is to store heat so there is a large quantity of stone to heat up. So for a retired couple likely will work well running 24/7. However the idea of only heating the house when home will not work. It needs to be used like storage radiators to work.

Pictures are also links.

Lectrician · 27 Jan 2013

Wet underfloor, designed, installed and commissioned correctly is fairly maintenance free. Any serviceable parts are all readily accessible.

Electric underfloor heating will fail. The probes are meant to be installed so as to be removeable, but seldom are. The elements themselves will fail eventually too.

SimonH2 · 27 Jan 2013

Lectrician said:
Electric underfloor heating will fail. The probes are meant to be installed so as to be removeable, but seldom are.

That's an installation error, not an inherent fault.
What I do find strange is that the senders fail - there has to be something fundamentally wrong as a) they are only a resistor, and b) the same type (electrically) of sensor is widely used in industry and I'm not aware that the failure rate is excessive.

The elements themselves will fail eventually too.

Why ? It's only a piece of resistance wire.

Having said that, given the choice I'd go for wet by preference. Higher capacity, and more flexibility in heat source. Downside is that wet is a lot harder to retrofit.

dhutch · 28 Jan 2013

Lectrician said:
Electric underfloor heating will fail. The probes are meant to be installed so as to be removeable, but seldom are. The elements themselves will fail eventually too.

Just for completness, its worth adding that my parents underfloor electric does not have a temperature probe. Its not a overlaid mat type, but cables around 6mm in diameter layed around plastic pulleys nailed to the conrete sub-floor and then concreated over.

I too cannot see they they (or the elements for that matter) should fail, and somewhat this has been proved out by it still going strong after 25years. But then again, im sure the lighter weight mats are susceptable, and ofcause almost anything can potentially fail at some point.

Ultimately that rings true to the 'not very suitable for retro-fitting' which I would said is fairly obvious. Somewhat depends if you after something to take the chill off the floor, or a radiator-free house.

Daniel

Lectrician · 28 Jan 2013

I have been to the same property several times to swap floor probes and controllers. This same site also now has no UFH in the kitchen or one of the en-suites as the heater mat is now open circuit. Luckily on this site, the probes could be swapped fairly easily.

I have been to other sites to swap probes and been unable to, and have swapped the wall controllers to a type that senses the air temperature instead, at the direction of the manufacturers, and this does not sound quite right to me.

Perhaps I am basing my bad experiences on just one site, but I would certainly not opt for it myself.

dhutch · 28 Jan 2013

Lectrician said:
Perhaps I am basing my bad experiences on just one site, but I would certainly not opt for it myself.

Depends doesnt it, I dont know if I would retro-fit it, but if I was building a new house, or totally renovating somewhere I would certainly be considering it, proberbly in the form of a wet system given that even if your heating with electric there has been a big increase in the availvabily of gshp's since my parents system was installed.
They are not on mains gas, which combined with the big push and cost instentives for electric heating in the 80's made it make perfect sense.

Daniel

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UFH reliability

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