UFH in small kitchen (and not elsewhere)?

[Garald]

Yet another chapter of my house adventures!

 

The place I've got has a smallish galley kitchen (225cmx405cm, before insulation). It was set up in 2015, with medium-range furniture that my girlfriend rather likes though the architect does not. (It's Mobalpa - the sort of thing that is (I believe) quite a lot more expensive than IKEA without being twice as good; it's not solid wood. The counter is some sort of sturdy black laminate - thank goodness, as I am largely the one who cooks, and I can be messy, apparently, or so have I had it screamed at me. I most definitely do not want to prepare food near somebody else's granite countertop ever again.)

 

Our original intention was not to touch the kitchen, and to insulate the floor from below (it's right above a coop corridor). However, the walls were uninsulated, and the architect was particularly concerned about the overall soundproofing of the streetside wall being compromised if the part corresponding to the kitchen wasn't. So, in the end, the workmen carefully took the kitchen apart - and noticed the long wall was in rather poor condition; we will insulate it after all.

 

In the process, they also had to destroy the current floor - a good thing, since it was vinyl poorly laid on damaged old tile.

 

I will spare you all the things I have been told about how anything I could do to the kitchen decor can only make it worse - I will probably just (a) raise the cabinets and (b) install some extra shelving on the other side.

 

The question now is: given that I have the freedom whether to put the insulation under the floor rather than on the corridor ceiling, what should I do?For that matter: given that I'll get a reversible heat pump, does it make sense to get under-floor heating that can be used also for cooling? That would free up space currently used by a radiator. Or is getting UFH in only one room impossible/too expensive? Or unfeasible (in that it would necessarily create a height difference - though we would presumably insulate the corridor ceiling, as originally planned, as opposed to insulate above)? If we do put in UFH, what we should put above it - synthetic flooring, since it is thinner?

 

I include both the floorplan and an image of the kitchen before renovation. 

 

 

 

[JohnMo]

The practicality really depends on your rooms heat loss do you know this?

[Radian]

I would think your biggest deciding factor should be your use pattern for the kitchen. UFH is only really practical if left running constantly in the heating season. If you're only in and out of the kitchen at meal times it's not responsive enough to warm the room on demand. As part of a whole house heating system (or ground floor only) it makes more sense, especially for more open-plan layouts. A galley kitchen strikes me as being as far a way from this as possible.

 

Also, cooling is a more likely requirement - especially if using the oven in the summer months with all that solar gain (assuming the tall window doesn't face North). IMO UFH is not really suited to this application in any respect - although there's nothing technically wrong with it providing that you can get 200mm of rigid insulation under it (assuming the corridor beneath is an unheated space).

 

I would be thinking about a Fan Coil Unit possibly integrated with your hob extractor boxing-in (if it still exists). Presumably it was boxed to provide a route for the vent trunking, in which case it might be extended the full length of the room - for symmetry and to give space for pipework). Another approach might be a mini-split A/C which would provide the same advantages (out of the way, heating/cooling, near-instant activation) but if you are already installing an ASHP, it might provide no advantage.

[AliG]

As there are no chairs in the kitchen and it is small I assume that it is only used for cooking. Then I do not see the point in spending a lot on heating and especially cooling. If you want cooling I would keep it to rooms that you spend a lot of time in (bedroom/living space).

 

If you want to put in UFH, it can be run as if it is another radiator in this kind of scenario. However, even if you can insulate below the floor, you will likely need to raise the floor as the pipework will probably have to sit on top of the joists and you will then need flooring on top of that. This will create a small step up into the kitchen.

 

I like @Radian's idea of a split A/C unit which could heat and cool the room and not take up any floor or wall space.

 

An even simpler solution is to move the radiator to the space behind the door as this space cannot have any furniture in it anyway. You could use a vertical radiator to keep it narrower, or just a small double radiator would likely suffice.

 

As to the other thread re kitchen floors. We have porcelain tiles on a concrete screed and I have never in the slightest felt it was hurting my feet or knees. That idea is just daft. The only time it hurts your knees is if you kneel on it to clean stuff up. Tile is the hardest wearing kitchen floor. I would not have wood ever in a kitchen. 

[Garald]

I also think the idea that tiles hurt your feed is daft. My family (all branches) went from dirt floors to tile floors in the kitchen about 100 years ago and has never looked back. However, my girlfriend descends from a long line of opinionated doctors, and it has been Carthago delenda est for weeks now. Her brother is actually into feet (as in, he operates on them) and answered, in brief: "I have tile floors, they are the worst, but it's not as if they were going to cause crippling arthritis or any such thing". So probably there is no actual reason. But I'll get a bamboo floor for the kitchen just to get this issue over and done with. That is easy to clean, no? (I'm also getting it for the landing of the little attic staircase, including the cat toilet under it.)

Edited December 4, 2022 by Garald

[Garald]

The kitchen will be used just for cooking (largely by me) and for having breakfast and/or small meals at the breakfast bar.

[Temp]

UFH has a much slower response time than rads. Personally I would stick with rads unless one of you is home most days so the heating is on in the daytime. If you have the heating set up on a twice a day program because you bot work the I'd stick with rads.

[Hastings]

1 hour ago, Temp said:

UFH has a much slower response time than rads. Personally I would stick with rads

Wholeheartedly agree.

 

We renovated our kitchen (old uninsulated listed cottage with rads, modern oil boiler) and now regret adding an UFH circuit for it and are about to abandon it (because it has broken yet again) and put in a radiator.

 

Having the boiler come on at 3am to get the kitchen warm by 7am is really annoying. UFH has more components to go wrong and in our case something fails every 3 years or so.

 

The timer for it does not allow to set any OFF times, it forces you to have it on continuously and only allows you to set reduced temperature periods and that reduction factor (a few degrees C) is not adjustable, another reason why it comes on at night. We can only stop the night time heating by turning the room thermostat down last thing before going to bed. I have nothing good to say about it.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Hastings

[Garald]

44 minutes ago, Hastings said:

Yet any OFF times, it forces you to have it on continuously and only allows you to set reduced temperature periods and that reduction factor (a few degrees C) is not adjustable, another reason why it comes on at night. We can only stop the night time heating by turning the room thermostat down last thing before going to bed. I have nothing good to say about it.

 

All right - I am no longer considering UFH.

[Temp]

On 04/12/2022 at 21:24, Hastings said:

The timer for it does not allow to set any OFF times, it forces you to have it on continuously and only allows you to set reduced temperature periods and that reduction factor (a few degrees C) is not adjustable, another reason why it comes on at night. We can only stop the night time heating by turning the room thermostat down last thing before going to bed. I have nothing good to say about it.

 

Change you stats/timer.

 

We have Heatmiser programmable stats that allow you to set different temperatures for four time periods a day. So if you want a room "off" at night you could set it to 10C or lower and it wouldn't come on. In practice we set it to 16C at night and it's only on very cold nights does it come on. I'm sure there are lots of other stats that can do more.

 

We love our UFH but we are retired so there is someone home most days, otherwise the warm up time might be annoying. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Temp

[Hastings]

On 06/12/2022 at 10:01, Temp said:

Change you stats/timer.

Ours (Uponor) does not allow 3rd party timers. There's a control box unitiinvolved.

Uponor technician I spoke to insisted it was more efficient never to have off periods, which is not true if you are running off a boiler rather than heat pump.

[dpmiller]

"does not allow"

 

sorry, who paid for it?