UFH for bedrooms on first floor?

[Bemak]

I'm in the middle of a refurb and I'm trying to decide whether I go for rads or UFH for the first floor bedrooms. My preference is for UFH to avoid hanging rads but my plumber thinks that rads would be better as they'll heat the space quicker. I don't disagree, particularly as I would be proposing to have the UFH pipework in pregrooved PLY under an engineered timber floor. I appreciate that the reaction time would be slower as the timber floor above the pipework would act as an insulator - but I'm not sure if that would be a major problem as we would typically only have the bedrooms at 19 degrees anyway. 

 

Just wondering if anyone has UFH in a similar scenario and how its working out? If you had the chance to redo it, would you go for rads instead?

[JohnMo]

What is your heat source?

 

27 minutes ago, Bemak said:

rads would be better as they'll heat the space quicker

Why wouldn't you be running weather compensation no matter what the heat source - so on 24/7 ticking away?

 

If gas assume you are going priority domestic hot water, not S or Y plan?

[Bemak]

sorry - should have mentioned that. It will be an oil boiler

[JohnMo]

3 minutes ago, Bemak said:

sorry - should have mentioned that. It will be an oil boiler

So are you just pulling water from a thermal store? More out of interest.

 

As you say, keeping bedrooms at 19, is the heating system just ticking away, so not really a reaction time thing.

 

Do you have UFH downstairs?

[Bemak]

The boiler will be linked to a manifold under the stairs and from there it will run to the various areas/tank. I will have a back boiler from the stove feeding the system also. I'm not sure if that means I would be pulling water from thermal store? 

 

That's a good point though - if the bedrooms are ticking over anyway then the reaction time is less critical. 

 

New insulated slab going in downstairs with UFH hence why i thought I might just put it everywhere.

Edited July 22 by Bemak

[JohnMo]

A thermal store is usually a large cylinder and the boiler feeds it with hot water. The store makes DHW via a coil or external heat exchanger. All heating water is taken from store. Is an easy way to stop the boiler from cycling.

 

Do you have a system layout sketch? 

[Bemak]

Ah - a buffer tank is what I understand that as. Sorry I was getting a bit mixed up. Yes we'll have a buffer tank in the system to stop the boiler from cycling. It will be a pressurised system with a cold water storage in attic, hot water cylinder in a first floor HP. I don't have a layout yet as I'm trying to decide on the system upstairs. I'm going to locate a manifold downstairs which will take the feed from the boiler and stove. It will link in with another manifold upstairs which will distribute to HWT and rads/UFH. The house is only 140sqm so it should be a fairly neat setup.

[JohnMo]

I was thinking some more like this.

 

https://www.advanceappliances.co.uk/product/70-multi-fuel-universal-thermal-store-sfuts/

 

So you have main pressure hot water, no cold water cylinder needed. One cylinder does it all.  Connect oil boiler, connect solid fuel, connect heating system flow and return to your UFH pump and mixer.