UFH under AV system

[Loz]

Hi,

Finally going to have a tv setup with a refurb project and have opted for wet under floor heating under porcelain tiles, one end of the room is going to have sub woofer, two floor standing speakers and a large cabinet with various AV boxes, the tv is going on the wall above it. Is there any harm in running the under floor heating under that lot or would it be advisable to come off the wall 50cm (depth of cabinet is 50cm - width 175cm) for any reason - plumber said they normally come off about 25cm, guess just worried would heat cabinet up (has very small feet so not directly on floor) and the boxes in cabinet and speakers/sub ?

Many thanks,

Lawrence

[RHayes]

Hello Lawrence

 

If the AV system is a permanent fixture then I'd stop the pipework short and not heat under it.  From an underfloor heating point of view all you do is save a little pipe, however you may need to tighten the spacing a little bit to put the amount of pipe needed in the room to sufficiently heat it, your designs should confirm this for you.  If it isn't a permanent fixture or if it comes to you moving house, then not piping under it will leave a 50cm cold area of the floor.  It will be waying up the benifits of not heating your AV system (I can't imagin this would be too bad for the AV system) vs having a cold area of floor if you decide to move the AV system or change anything down the line.

 

Re the feet, if it is 10mm or less this will heat the AV cabinet a bit and will also act like a rug over the floor in terms of heat output in the area covered by the cabinet.  If it is more than 10mm then this becomes significantly reduced the higher it is.

 

Trust this Helps

 

R.

[Loz]

Thanks for reply, doesn't seem much info on this particular topic out there, some say floor temp will be no hotter than a warm summers day but just cant help feeling with not much gap there would be a fair bit of warming which normally isn't good for electrics, there is small air gap under both cabinet and speakers/sub, mmm bit torn now.

[markc]

Assuming your UFH is running at 25 degrees then it won’t get any higher, electric heating mats are a different matter because any covering leads to hot spots.

wet UFH limits the floor temp to temp of water running through it.

25 degrees is nothing for electrics

[Conor]

Could you insulate between the floor and bottom of the cabinet? E.g 50mm of polystyrene?

 

[Loz]

I think the water runs hotter but the surface temp on the tiles is around 25 degrees to keep the room at a comfortable temperature so 25 degrees doesn't seem too bad given a small gap at bottom between everything although not sure if that is healthy for everything to be just above 25 degree heat source for prolonged periods, toying with just stopping 60cm shot of wall and as sitting couple of meters further back shouldn't notice it but worried creating some kind of weird cold sport against a north facing wall although the floor is well insulated (75mm) underneath the screed.

 

Lawrence