electric ufh for new sunroom-insulate from floor or not

T

tobs

Guest
Hi

I've read the key post regarding ufh and it has helped me a lot with specifing the system. I'm building a new sunroom 14m2. The plan is to put electric ufh under the tiles, but also have a large radiator. The electric ufh will act as a means to heat the tiled floor. The idea would be to run the electric ufh from the night time meter and use the radiator as a means of heating the room if required during the evenings.

The question I'm unsure of is should insulation be placed between the electrical heating and the concrete floor OR should it be left without insulation ? (The slab floor will have insulation under the concrete, as per normal building stds.)

If no isulation is placed, then the concrete slab will emit the heat in a slow fashion (like a storage heater) and suit the use of night time electricity. However if insulation is placed, then the slab may not act as a storage heater, making it unsuitable for the cheaper night rate electricty, however have the advantage of better heat control that suits Irish weather.

Has anyone have similar system installed and could comment ?

Thanks
Tobs
 
i dont think what your planning is a good idea.
electric ufh is very dear to run and running it at night would be a waste.
it is probably not powerful enough to heat up a concrete slab which i guess isthe reason it is usually placed directly under the tiles. that gives reasonable response times but poor heat retention.
you should go for proper ufh which is great.
kits are available to plug into existing rad systems but if your boiler is situated outside, you could run a seperate feed to/from it to the sunroom and put on a motorised valve to shut off heat to the rest of the house that would give you completely seperate zone control
rough costs of the main bits

manifold/mixer 400
control panel 120
room stats 30-40 each 1 for sunroom and 1 for rest of house
pipe 400

with proper ufh , the pipe is laid on top of thick xtratherm foil backed insulation and the screed is poured over it to about 6 inches depth.
i did my own and found it quite easy to do. i got the bits from heatmerchants who i found very helpful. they worked out the materials needed from my plans
 
i forgot to mention that i have both systems ufh in 3 downstaris rooms and electric ufh in the bathrooms. the electric is good in the bathrooms for taking the sting out of the normally cold tiles but i dont think it would be up to heating a large room.
 
thanks for the food for thought but everything is already underway.

I intend to use the electric ufh as background heating and if additional heat is required that the rads are used.

the sunroom is south facing- so i a bright day the room will natural heat from the sun- however the tiles will be cold underfoot.

during the night when there is no sun then the plan is to use the rads to heat the room.

however i'm still uncertain which is the best option - insulation between the electric ufh and floor or no insulation.

manufacturers seem to recommend for background heating- there is no need to have insulation!
 
For backround heating, you'd want to heat the slab so that it in effect will act as a radiator. It will take many hours to heat a slab with electric underfloor heating though, and at 100-150W/sq M, that could be expensive.
 
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