Doodlehime Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 Looking to retrofit UFH into a concrete floor in our hallway. After talking to my heating engineer he mentioned a company which can mill the tracks info the floor. I looked to hire the machinery myself but few companies in the country rent the gear and none in the north west. I wondered if I could use a wall chaser to do a simple 17mm channel in a simple grid and then use a hand chisel to round the edges off for the turns? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 There is a company near me advertising this, without insulation under that slab you might as well cut your money up and throw it out of the window. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nod Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 Just starting to type the same Russ Well nearly Your starting to make me look tactful Russ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 +3 I was just about to ask how old the house is and what insulation is there under the floor. Without any I would strongly advise against trying to install UFH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 The only way to retrofit is to put “some” insulation in or take the floor out and start again, otherwise it’s just heating the ground below. Wunda do an overlay system which is about 30mm thick but the losses will be eye watering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doodlehime Posted January 3, 2020 Author Share Posted January 3, 2020 So it would only be in a narrow hall space. The living spaces will be part of an extension and have insulation underneath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doodlehime Posted January 3, 2020 Author Share Posted January 3, 2020 (edited) 39 minutes ago, PeterW said: The only way to retrofit is to put “some” insulation in or take the floor out and start again, otherwise it’s just heating the ground below. Wunda do an overlay system which is about 30mm thick but the losses will be eye watering. Ive seen the Wunda system but ideally id like to not raise the floor. Edited January 3, 2020 by Doodlehime Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 Ok so how much height have you got to play with ..? This will dictate your insulation options. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doodlehime Posted January 3, 2020 Author Share Posted January 3, 2020 Sorry I don't want to raise the floor as it have to follow that through all around the down stairs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 If this is under a tiled floor then consider an electric element system but it will only work as tile warming not heating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doodlehime Posted January 3, 2020 Author Share Posted January 3, 2020 Ok thanks all. Would a radiator in the space be more advisable then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 Get digging! A real sense of achievement and cheaper that gym membership! ? I've only 150mm pir +25mm eps under mine. Tbh, at the time I'd just had enough digging. Knowing what I know now I'd have dug deeper and put more insulation in. Got there in the end though! The next 4 rooms and hall shouldn't be so bad as suspended floors of different depths. Maybe no digging at all in 2 and the hall, just remove the joists and dwarf walls and build back up! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 12 minutes ago, Doodlehime said: Ok thanks all. Would a radiator in the space be more advisable then? Yes if the rest of the house is on rads. UFH won’t cut it if it’s the only room and you’ll just be heating the ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doodlehime Posted January 3, 2020 Author Share Posted January 3, 2020 Sorry for the crude drawing. The areas shaded in green will have insulation to Current building regs and UFH. The area in question is the hall which from what I can tell is an uninsulated slab. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 43 minutes ago, Doodlehime said: Sorry for the crude drawing. The areas shaded in green will have insulation to Current building regs and UFH. The area in question is the hall which from what I can tell is an uninsulated slab. Wuss! Morning's work with a blunt spade! ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 Seriously though.....I have a similar area to dig in what we call our "stairs" room i.e where the stairs are. Ideally I'd like to dig up under the stairs too but am worried as to how I'd support/suspend the stairs when I do it. Only thing I can think of is temporarily, literally suspend them from the ceiling joists above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doodlehime Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 8 hours ago, Onoff said: Wuss! Morning's work with a blunt spade! ? ? Im sure my father in law who is helping me would love to do it. In all honesty we dont have the time or budget to dig up the whole down stairs. Also as these wont be living areas I think it would be over kill for our ex council house. One existing concrete floor does need to come up because I believe it has suffered from sulphate attack. Also the DPM which was bitumen poured on top has been breached and the floor is seriously bad. From what I can see the solid floors in the unshaded areas are all good. If people think UFH is not an option in these areas I will us rads and hide the pipework in the new stud walls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 I would question if you need heating in that area. In our last house I fitted UFH in the hall and on the landing. But I found because both the hall and landing were surrounded (apart from the front door) by other heated rooms, that the heating in the hall and landing never ever came on. It was in hindsight a waste of effort heating those zones. In the present house I did not bother with heating in the hall or landing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doodlehime Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 36 minutes ago, ProDave said: I would question if you need heating in that area. In our last house I fitted UFH in the hall and on the landing. But I found because both the hall and landing were surrounded (apart from the front door) by other heated rooms, that the heating in the hall and landing never ever came on. It was in hindsight a waste of effort heating those zones. In the present house I did not bother with heating in the hall or landing. Good point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted January 7, 2020 Share Posted January 7, 2020 On 04/01/2020 at 09:10, Doodlehime said: In all honesty we dont have the time or budget to dig up the whole down stairs. My bathroom floor was very out of level , cracked and broken which is primarily why I dug it up. The bathroom was a poor extension on the original property with window and door positions changed and blocked up over the years. Even had render over wallpapered walls! The basic cavity walls of the extension are generally ok if a bit rubble filled. The ceiling joists thus ceiling sloped by around 6" to get the fall on what was originally a flat roof (since brought in under a hip). Plus it was out of square. There was always a bit of a "ramp" through the door into the bathroom through the original doorway in the circa 350 - 400mm solid walls. It was only when I knocked a new doorway thru (actually this was the very original doorway) that I found the bathroom floor, at worst was 60mm higher than the adjacent, original rooms. There was no turning back after that so I started digging! Insulation AND UFH was a no brainer. I think someone on here calculated I shifted about 7 tonne by hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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