Underfloor heating is poor

[boilerfrustration]

I recently had underfloor heating installed under a brand new wood floor in the living room and under the tiles in the bathroom.

I researched to ensure the fitter installed the correct types of underfloor heating. The one in the bathroom works great. I can feel the heat under my feet. But the one in the living room is poor. I have explained this to the fitter who said the heat will not be as obvious. But I think the heat is not even noticeable. Should underfloor heating for wood floors be as obvious to touch as for tiled floors?

 

[ricicle]

Is this wet or dry UFH ?
Was the floor prepared with insulation in one and not the other or are the sub-floors different materials ?

Is the density of piping/wiring different in one to the other ?

If electric is one a different wattage to the other ?

UFH in not particularly good anyway unless the floor is properly insulated and even then wet systems are better than dry ones (unless you wish to pay a fortune in heating costs)

 

[boilerfrustration]

Both UFH systems are dry. The bathroom uses a coiled mat and the living room uses foil which is supposed to produce 'radiant' heat. I will have to find out about the wattage. Both floors were properly insulated from underneath before the UFH was installed.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Wood is a very effective insulator. I imagine that in the bathroom you have stone tiles, which are not good insulators.

UFH under wood is like insulating your radiators,

 

[ericmark]

I fitted one in my parents bathroom well it's a wet room and the special earthed mesh type was selected before anyone asks.

The temperature is just cool enough to walk on with bar feet any hotter and one could not walk on the floor.

From using the shower to reheating the floor takes around 1/2 hour which is useless idea was to dry tiles some my mother would not slip over she is hardly going to wait 1/2 an hour.

Unless the heated towel rail is used the room is too cold in the winter clearly can't turn it up any hotter or will not be able to walk on the floor.

The controller failed within 9 months and was renewed. Then the sensor under the floor failed and it refuses point blank to come out of the pocket. So now switched off it was a complete failure.

I am told that where carpets are used the filament nature of the carpet can better transfer the heat into the room. But from my central heating switching on to radiators getting hot takes around 10 to 15 mins. From cold my mothers wet room takes 1 hour to heat up. So unless being heated 24/7 the under floor heating has to run for a lot longer than standard central heating.

In Chester there is an example of underfloor heating built by the Romans. So the system has been around for at least 1000 years. Just ask why it's not used much? Answer is easy it does not work.

 

[RF Lighting]

Properly installed wet underfloor heating DOES work. It's fantastic and much more efficient than radiators are.

Electric underfloor heating is good for taking the chill off a tiled floor and that's it. It was never designed to, and never will heat a room.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Surely both technologies can (in theory) put enough energy into a floor to make it radiate enough heat into the room to heat the space.

Figures for how efficiently a given material will radiate are available, and the amount of heat you need to put into a rooms of given size/construction/configuration etc are known, so from those and the area of the floor you can work out how hot you need to make the floor.

And then you can decide if that will be too hot to walk on or not.

 

[big-all]

Properly installed wet underfloor heating DOES work. It's fantastic and much more efficient than radiators are.

much more efficient ???
they each have there benefits but underfloor being more efficient is a new one one me
are you talking efficiency in converting a greater percentage off the heat[energy] input to warm the room or being quicker at doing the job

 

[RF Lighting]

I'm talking about the lower operating temperature and reduced fuel requirements of UFH

 

[ban-all-sheds]

To heat a given volume you have to put in a given amount of energy.

If you put in less, you raise the temperature by less.

 

[flameport]

In Chester there is an example of underfloor heating built by the Romans.

The Romans had tiled floors.

They did not have laminate, carpets, rugs and gigantic sofas which can only be moved into the house by taking out the front windows - all of which will massively reduce the effectiveness of underfloor heating.