electric floor heating compared to central heating radiator

[happyhero]

Hi, I must be searching with the wrong words as I was convinced this would be a common question but I have tried googling it and not really found the answer so I am on here to ask you guys.

We are decorating our bedroom which is about 3.5m by 4m and we are tempted to remove the radiator as it is in the way of what we want to do and we don't want to put it anywhere else in the room really. We keep our bedroom fairly cool so the radiator is not on much or very high most of the time.

Basically we fancy putting in electric floor heating in this room but my wife has not decided on the floor finish yet, could be wood floor or could be carpet. can you have electric floor with carpet is the first question?

Also I understand it depends on how well insulated the floor is so i was thinking of putting Kingspan type stuff, maybe 50mm under the floor boards first pressed up against the underside of the floor boards, is this a good way to do it?

I have read that some people put a polyurethane membrane over the boards, should I do that too? Wont it sweat somehow?

And finally most importantly how will the energy cost compare with the radiator working off the gas against the floor that would be electric roughly speaking, I don't necessarily want to start calculating from my bills if I can get a guide from someone here?

Any help appreciated.

 

[RF Lighting]

Don't do it.

It never works.

Imagine wrapping a big blanket around your radiator and then wondering why no heat is coming out.

Electricity is much more expensive to heat with, and underfloor heating can't run as hot as your radiator or you'd burn your feet and melt your carpets, so it has to be on all the time.

 

[Taylortwocities]

Agreed.
Underfloor electric heating is fine to take the chill off a tiled floor but pointless under carpet. Also it is hopeless as a space heater.

Use radiators,

or wet underfloor heating - More info at http://www.ufch.com/

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Wet just makes it cheaper to run - it does nothing to address the problem of the floor temperature.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

we are tempted to remove the radiator as it is in the way of what we want to do and we don't want to put it anywhere else in the room really.

No corner where you could put a quarter-round vertical rad, like the Vasco CR-A?

Would your wife not find a full-length mirror a useful thing to have in the room?

We keep our bedroom fairly cool so the radiator is not on much or very high most of the time.

Do you like it cool in the summer too? What about an air-source heat pump?

 

[xdave]

Electric/dry UFH can work as a space/room heater but it will be expensive to run. It will be far more expensive that the cost of a designer radiator as bas has suggested.

To pull it off you really need to design the entire subfloor around it so it is usually not very effective when retrofitted to an existing floor. The requirements are similar to wet UFH though. You need to insulate the floor slab and also have a good thermal mass. Most retrofits can't provide both and so don't work very well. UFH will also never be as responsive as radiators which is why you use special controllers and ideally weather compensators. With a wet system you would normally run it for 24h a day and step the temperature up when needed. With dry UFH that would not be financially possible. It would be cheaper to just burn £5 notes in the middle of the room.

This article discusses a lot of the differences and requirements:
http://www.homebuilding.co.uk/advice/key-choices/heating/ufh-explained