Underfloor Heating - yes or no?

1

1carrot2

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I have read all the AAM threads on UFH but I am still struggling with the decision of whether to go with it or rads.
We are building a single storey extension which will create a large square room of approx. 750 sq.ft. This room will be used as an open plan kitchen / dining / living area. We will have 2 well insulated external walls and 1 'glass' wall to the garden.
The rest of the house will still be heated by rads which were replaced 2 years ago. Got new boiler then also with enough BTU capacity to heat the new area.
The drawbacks of UFH as I see them are about lack of control (which I see as very important) and also inefficiency in terms of cost of running and energy use.
The drawbacks of rads are that we may not be able to heat the whole room from rads around perimeter. Also, we would probably have to look at raising our 'glass wall' by 12" to 18" to accomodate low rads under the windows.
Can anyone give me some straightforward advice to help me make my decision?
 
I installed UFH when I built my house 6 years ago. Most of the ground floor is open-plan with a very high ceiling, and like you I would have had issues with using rads to heat such a large volume of space. I chose UFH as it works with radiant heat, thereby concentrating its heat to approx 6 feet from floor level, as opposed to rads which work with convected heat, (and in my case would have had to move warm air up to 15' ceilings and back down again.) I am delighted with my UFH. Fair enough it uses a fraction more Home Heating Oil than rads, although it is difficult to compare, but is a much more pleasant heat. Be warned though... I have heard horror stories. Make sure the company you deal with have a good reputation. Ask if you can speak to a couple of their previous clients. (My system is WTH. The guy who installed it has moved abroad, but the head office is WHI in Omagh 048 8225 2288, and they could put you in touch with your nearest installer. )
 
UFH - Yes!

Why? No ugly radiators. The system I have can adjust the temperature. Nice also if you walk barefott.
 
Hi there, I hope you don't mind me hogging your post for a quick question. You mention that you have a glass wall to the garden. How did you achieve that? It is something I would love to do with my existing wall, ie, change it from block to glass but haven't got a clue where to begin.

Regards
 
Phoenix,
The glass wall is in a new extension. It is approx. 7 metres accross. The walls at each side will be spanned by a steel girder which will then be clad in wood. There will be glass panes below the girder and in the apexes above the girder. It will not be finished until end of July so I don't know how it will turn out yet.
 
Irish weather is not really suitable for underfloor heating.Takes 24 hours to heat up and 24 hours to cool down.Only works well with tiles.I have it in one area of house but I also put a large rad in the area as well to heat the room in a hurry.
 
Hi
We have had underfloor heating since our house was built in 1998 and it is great, no quibles at all. Yes it does take ages to heat up and cool down so there may be one day in June or Sept when weather suddenly changes and your'e caught cos system hasn't caught up but i honestly can't remember ever thinking i wish system would heat quicker.
We also put in a geothermal system to run our heating about 4 years ago as it is suited very well to underfloor. We had lots of headaches with it but mainly due to our installer not being au fe with new technology...still despite all its drawbacks its saving us up on €1500 p.a.!
underfloor heating...great!
Regards
Mary
 
Its only a small issue, but we lived in an UFH home in Europe back in th '80s.
It really was lovely to get up in the morning to warm tiled floors, but 1 aspect I haven't seen mentioned here that was part of the set up when our home was built was to keep 1 area/room UFH-free... (in our case a toilet), as in winter it was the only room our pets could comfortably sleep in, in the other rooms they ended up semi-baked!
 
Hi - to go back to the original post - we are also considering building a single storey extension which will create a large square room of approx. to be used as an open plan kitchen / dining / living area. I'm having some conceptual problems as to where to put the kitchen, island or no island etc. What layout did you go for ?
 
Looking from the inside of the house toward the back - we will have an L-shaped kitchen to the right extending to approx. 3m short of the back screen. We will have a 1900 x 900 island with a sink in it about 1500 from the counters. We will have dining table and chairs to the left and lounge/TV area across the width of the screen at the back. We will have a full-length glass block window and 2 veluxes to bring natural light into the furthest reaches of the room.
I hope this is of some assistance.
 
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