ground source heat pump and upstairs underfloor heating help

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Hello, I am a newbie so I apologise in advice if I get anything wrong.
I am building a new house and have been for 18 months.We have chosen a ground source heat pump but are now struggling with UFH upstairs no one seems to be able to tell us how thick our floor can be on top of the spreader plates, we think the thinner the better but do not want to have bounce and have chosen wooden engineered flooring that is 18mm and slate tiles in the bathroom we are just worried we will be cold upstairs.We have been working with Ice energy and in honesty they have been dreadful.Any help would be great
 
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depends on the joist spacing, whatever you go for it need to be brought up to temperature slowly then tick over.
 
We've gone for 18mm chipboard (yes I know, work of the devil!) glued and screwed to the joists as the structural layer then some upmarket laminate for the final covering. Laminate because it's in the bedrooms and is more stable than engineered wood. Some friends had real problems with engineered wood due to moisture levels and both heave and gaps. The heat 'input' calcs were based on chipboard + laminate.

We used a 'thermally conductive' underlay between the chipboard and the laminate. Seems to work OK but not sure if it's not just a bit of a con.
 
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Thanks everyone, I have contacted manufacturer of flooring to ask for spec. I wondered about going to just electric ufh in tha bathrooms as the thought of board then tiles seems a bit odd.Our joists are 300mm apart and have been battened in the bathroom.
 
If you are serious with your heat pump then presumably you will have an evening/weekend or at least an off peak tariff.

In that case then perhaps electric under floor heating will not be that much more expensive.

Tony
 
I think Kensa is a better GSHP.

Geothermal heat pumps have the best COP, so while expensive it's pay dividends long term.

For first floor UFH & a GSHP the optimum is always some kind of thermal mass not plates. This can be achieved with a biscuit/pug of weak mix concrete between FF joists. Of course this needs to be calculated for additional structural weight on these joists.

Any wood flooring would be OK with UFH, it just needs to get acclimatised to the rooms. Engineered flooring is great for UFH.
HTH
 
Hello, I am a newbie so I apologise in advice if I get anything wrong.
I am building a new house and have been for 18 months.We have chosen a ground source heat pump but are now struggling with UFH upstairs no one seems to be able to tell us how thick our floor can be on top of the spreader plates, we think the thinner the better but do not want to have bounce and have chosen wooden engineered flooring that is 18mm and slate tiles in the bathroom we are just worried we will be cold upstairs.We have been working with Ice energy and in honesty they have been dreadful.Any help would be great

Underfloor heating outputs are calculated by totaling the R value of the individual components that make up the floor, the required heatload for the room is determined by completing a heatloss calculation, from this you can work out the energy required in watts per m/2, from these calculations, Wm/2 and floors u value you can select your underfloor heating flow temperature to give the required output. All this has an effect on your SPF which in turn determines your RHI payments, any reputable Heat Pump installer should do these calculations for you as part of the MCS requirements.
I would always recommend some kind of thermal mass for this combination in the way of screed or large buffer tanks.
 
I suspect this is some kind of DIY job.

Tiles are not that bad at thermal transfer so fine for UFH.

But as always some thermal mass helps the overall effectiveness.

Tony
 

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