Bathroom underfloor & towel rail wet or electric?

[Tadpole]

Thanks in advance for any help and guidance.

 

We will shortly start on a 3 bed 3 bath SIPs house with wet UFH downstairs, ASHP, MVHR, solar PV - maybe SolarWatt battery. Mostly 2 retired active adults with frequent visitors.

 

As I work through so many decisions, I'm currently stumped with this one. It's really 2 separate questions but they are related for me.

 

So bathroom floors will be porcelain tile. I'm torn between electric UFH or a zone on the UFH? If the latter should each bathroom be a separate zone or just put all 3 on one for simplicity.  If electric - which we have currently - each bathroom would be independent.

 

Towel rail needs to be big enough for 2 damp bath sheets, preferably side by side. I've seen examples 1000mm x 600mm. Again if wet, each on its own or one zone? 

 

I'll post some of my other dilemmas in the relevant sub forum.

 

thanks

[Russdl]

@Tadpolewe have a similar set up to you. We went with electric UFH for both bathrooms with their own controllers and used independently timed ‘towel trees’ as space was limited. Bath sheets dry quickly. 
 

[Nickfromwales]

41 minutes ago, Tadpole said:

Thanks in advance for any help and guidance.

 

We will shortly start on a 3 bed 3 bath SIPs house with wet UFH downstairs, ASHP, MVHR, solar PV - maybe SolarWatt battery. Mostly 2 retired active adults with frequent visitors.

 

As I work through so many decisions, I'm currently stumped with this one. It's really 2 separate questions but they are related for me.

 

So bathroom floors will be porcelain tile. I'm torn between electric UFH or a zone on the UFH? If the latter should each bathroom be a separate zone or just put all 3 on one for simplicity.  If electric - which we have currently - each bathroom would be independent.

 

Towel rail needs to be big enough for 2 damp bath sheets, preferably side by side. I've seen examples 1000mm x 600mm. Again if wet, each on its own or one zone? 

 

I'll post some of my other dilemmas in the relevant sub forum.

 

thanks

With MVHR the towels tend to dry off without even turning on and heating the towel rads. My clients often remark at how well this happens and how effectively the MVHR removes the damp / humidity also. 

Those would be big towel rads though, so you'll need space for them that's all.

I would deffo just go with the simplicity of electric UFH, which is what I routinely fit on each project. Wet UFH on such small circuits is a PITA to install, control, and would see the ASHP / boiler having to fire up just to keep these warm when perhaps the heating would not otherwise be coming on. It would also need a separate dedicated manifold and pump to give higher flow rates temperature than the UFH would typically see. That adds to fatigue of the heat source, so has less than obvious side effects to consider also. Those costs will buy an awful lot of electricity, outside of what your PV will be producing, so KISS here is a no brainer.

 

Electric UTH and electric towel rads would be my recommendation here. 

Edited March 14, 2022 by Nickfromwales

[Tadpole]

Awesome, thank you both.

@Russdl especially that towel tree.

@Nickfromwalesyou confirmed several suspicions of mine - I strongly approve of KISS.

 

cheers

[JohnMo]

I have wet UFH, electric towel rads.

 

If I did it again, I would do electric towel and electric UFH.

[Bitpipe]

We have wet low temp ufh on ground floor and it's rarely on, even in winter. 

 

Put 150w electric UFH under tiles in upstairs bathrooms and it comes on daily for a few hours to warm the tiles.

 

Fairly inexpensive if you get the mats off eBay - we used Warmstar and bought fancier wall controllers than the basic ones supplied.

 

Also have wet towel rads, turn those off outside of winter, MVHR dries everything out quite quickly anyway.

Edited March 14, 2022 by Bitpipe

[Tadpole]

Thanks to all.

 

As there's 3 upstairs bathrooms and 2 inhabitants using just one of them, I've settled on electric UFH and radiators because of the control and flexibility.

 

After this terrific response I'll post my next quandary shortly.

 

 

[Thorfun]

57 minutes ago, Tadpole said:

I'll post my next quandary shortly.

and there will be many! 😉