UFH and Carpets. Tog ratings, specialist underlay and other nonsense?

[peekay]

Hi All,

 

We are doing a self build. 280m2, 2 storey, 5 beds (4 upstairs, one downstairs).

 

The plan is ASHP, MVHR, 3G windows, airtight, and currently UFH throughout.

 

However, we really like carpets in bedrooms and the lounge (will be hard flooring in kitchen/sitting/dining room, study, hallway, bathrooms and utility).

 

I seem to have read conflicting things about the effectiveness of UFH with carpets. There is some claimed specialist underlay and low toggage carpets, but that very quickly gets expensive. And they may have the utilitarian feel of office carpet tiles.

 

We don't really fancy radiators as we haven't finalised room layouts and don't want wall mounted radiators to be a restriction. Similar with the skirting heating. It would be great to have the same heating method throughout the whole house.

 

Has anyone just used traditional underlay and carpets with UFH? Was it effective?

 

My thinking is that if the house is well insulated, and the heating is running low and slow from the ASHP, the heat HAS to go somewhere, so should eventually heat the room once the thermal mass of the underlay and carpet are finally up to temperature. 

 

Would welcome any thoughts.

 

Thanks

[JohnMo]

We have a single storey with carpet and UFH in the bedrooms, but it's not very effective doing low flow temps. But ok if you like cooler bedrooms. Thing is though with a well insulated house open the bedroom doors for 30 mins and they are the same temperature is the same of the house.

 

Many on here just don't have any heating in bedrooms when upstairs.

 

Lounge carpet not a fan with UFH.

 

9 minutes ago, peekay said:

running low and slow from the ASHP, the heat HAS to go somewhere, so should eventually heat the room

I thought the same with the summer house (very well insulated) but that never got warm when it was cold outside. Fan coil and I can have temperature I want.

 

 

[peekay]

Thanks @JohnMo. With your UFH carpeted rooms, did you use special UFH specific underlay and low tog carpets and still find it ineffective, or just standard materials? 

[Temp]

You can get special low tog underlay For UFH. Try and keep the total tog as low as possible.

 

Some carpets are available in two versions (with Hessian or foam backing). Beware the small print in carpet shop contracts that allows them to deliver either version at their choice. 

 

 

[Redoctober]

2 hours ago, peekay said:

I seem to have read conflicting things about the effectiveness of UFH with carpets. There is some claimed specialist underlay and low toggage carpets, but that very quickly gets expensive. And they may have the utilitarian feel of office carpet tiles.

Has anyone just used traditional underlay and carpets with UFH? Was it effective?

 

Yes, this is a diffcult one - we have UFH throughout [upsatirs and downstairs] - That said there is only carpets in the bedrooms and sitting room. All other rooms have stone flooring. We went for UFH "freindly" low tog underlay and carpets for the above mentioned rooms. In truth, when the carpet was laid, I was a tad disappointed with it. I suppose it was because were so used to lovely wool based carpets from JL in our previous "developer built" house, the lack of / feel of this carpet, came to us a bit of a shock.  

 

However, it works great on the stairs and landing - no UFH there and also in the bedrooms which are guest bedrooms - so they don't get seen / used that often. We will be looking to replace the carpets though, in the next 2 years [ laid in 2018] for no other reason than the feel / look in the sitting room.  When we do, we are minded to forgo the "low tog" carpet if the spec hasn't improved in the years gone by. I'm not sure if it will have that much of an impact upon the effectivenss of the UFH in the sitting room. If it does, we always have the log burner to "boost" the heating if needed. 

 

I hope this helps.

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, peekay said:

Thanks @JohnMo. With your UFH carpeted rooms, did you use special UFH specific underlay and low tog carpets and still find it ineffective, or just standard materials? 

The supplier said the underlay was, but wife wanted decent wool carpet, so not the best for performance. But not a fan of UFH in bedrooms really, now we have it. Our last house was built in 1830 and we never switched the heating on on the bedroom ever.

[nod]

I would look at your levels of insulation 

Do you really need UFH on the first floor 

Weve never used the radiators in the bedrooms(5 years)  AS the  heat from the GF UFH rises and bedrooms mimic the downstairs temps 

 

My wife didn’t want to put any heating in the bedrooms of our current build 

But we have done should we decide to sell 

[peekay]

9 hours ago, nod said:

I would look at your levels of insulation 

Do you really need UFH on the first floor 

Weve never used the radiators in the bedrooms(5 years)  AS the  heat from the GF UFH rises and bedrooms mimic the downstairs temps 

 

My wife didn’t want to put any heating in the bedrooms of our current build 

But we have done should we decide to sell 

 

I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to do without any heating upstairs. We'll certainly want UFH in the family bathroom and en suite, so I thought that it might be easier to run UFH throughout so that floor levels remain the same.

 

I suppose if we were to mount UFH drum below for the bathrooms, and put in pipework for radiators in the bedrooms, then we shouldn't need to worry about floor levels, and can always put radiators in if we feel like we need them, as by that point the bedroom layouts should be settled so radiator placement won't be a restrictor.