Underfloor Heating vs Aga

[CADjockey]

We plan to install underfloor heating but can’t see how that can be compatible with the possibility of also installing an Aga, especially in a modern insulated build. We have one currently and really like it in the winter, it’s a lovely thing if you can afford to run it. Ours is not for running any rads, just water and cooking. Anyone got underfloor and an Aga? How do you reconcile the additional heat and underfloor heating?

[PeterW]

If you have to have an Aga - they are really a lifestyle statement in a well insulated house - then look at the ones from EcoRange as they can be timed much better and run less. It also tells you on their website how much heat into the room they create - you just deduct this from the heat requirement of the room and factor that into your UFH plan. 

[Ferdinand]

If you have not done it before elsewhere, go and visit a couple of buildhubbers’ houses to see just how small the space heating rads are in practice.

 

For some places, a camping stove could probably do it for heating.

Edited June 18, 2018 by Ferdinand

[CADjockey]

Additional to original post of 'UFH vs Aga', we had a great log burner fitted in our current house before we started down this build route. We thought we'd lift and shift it to the new house. But same question applies.Is it utterly pointless to plan

for a chimney and all the additional stuff to accommodate it in a modern insulated house with UFH.

(We do have already supply of logs has to be said)

 

Should I bin the idea and just plan to put it on eBay?

[pdf27]

Unless you are planning a very large house and the stove is one which can shift most of the heat to water, yes - at least if you plan to insulate to a decent standard. Controlling it so you don't bake is likely to be a major pain in the posterior.

One other thing to consider is that a wood-burning stove needs a free-flowing chimney and an air supply. While there are solutions out there which attempt to address this problem (e.g. http://www.poujoulat.co.uk/catalogues/domestic/Leaflet_efficience_PF_2014.pdf), you're left with the issue that the air column forms a thermal bridge through the structure and the stove has to be designed to give a good thermal link between the gas inside it and the room - leaving you with what is essentially a log-burning fridge when you don't have a fire going in winter.

[gravelld]

It depends what you mean by "modern insulated". What sort of peak heat demand are we talking?

 

What energy source for the Aga?

 

A radiative based cooking stove is a wonderful thing (for cooking) but there are elements of Aga's products you have to watch out for.

[ProDave]

Wood burners is a marmite subject here. You love them or hate them, no inbetween.

 

We are having one more as a lifestyle choice and we usually have plenty of free wood.  You have to be very careful not to oversize it, so a monster from a previous poorly insulated house might not be a good choice.

 

The other "must have" is a room sealed stove, i.e. the air intake is ducted in from outside so it is not drawing in room air.

 

Several have fitted the little Burley Springdale (or firebox) which at 3KW  believe to be the smallest room sealed stove available, though we are fitting a slightly larger one at just over 4KW.  Ours is going in the large room, and there is potential to leave the double doors to the rest of the house open to let heat out if (when) it gets too warm. And I don't expect to be burning it often or for long. 

[CADjockey]

48 minutes ago, ProDave said:

lifestyle choice

 

Yup, they both most certainly are. 

I could certainly save £7k+ on not fitting an Aga.

 

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

large room

 

What do you call large? Our living room is planned to be 4800 x 6300 but will have 25%+ of the walls as glass.

We currently have an Arduro16 which is 5kW and overkill for our current living room which is less wide.

 

[Nickfromwales]

To integrate the Aga you'll need a big thermal store to transfer the heat to the space heating ( if that's what your original question related to ? )

Benefit is you can then use it for DHW or DHW pre-heat to your separate hot water cylinder. 

[Mr Punter]

The Aga will make it sweltering.

[Jeremy Harris]

My late Mother's stone farmhouse has an Aga (well, actually a Rayburn, but they are broadly similar).  That keeps the house nice and cosy, but that's a house on top of an exposed moor, surrounded by open farmland, and the house has no insulation at all, and only single glazed windows.  It's also as drafty as a very drafty thing, with gaps around doors that you can almost get your finger in. 

 

I had a stab at working out the EPC for it a few years ago, and it was something like a Band F.

 

A new build, even built to just meet the requirements of Part L1A of the building regs, will need perhaps 1/10th, or less, of the heat, and should have an EPC of band B, or perhaps C, at the very worst.  I strongly suspect that the Aga may be a massive overkill, unless you can find a way to dramatically reduce it's room heat output.

 

As an illustration of how little heat a reasonably well-insulated and airtight house needs, when we have guests around in very cold weather, the body heat from two extra people in the house is quite enough to cause the heating to turn off, if it's on.  An Aga is probably about the same as twenty or thirty people in the house, perhaps more.

 

As another illustration, when I was still working on the interior of the house, I had an old Vax vacuum cleaner, for cleaning up after work.  If I ran that for ten minutes or so the house would quickly get uncomfortably warm, as it has a motor that chucks out around 1200 to 1400 watts.  We ended up buying two Dyson cordless cleaners, one lives upstairs the other downstairs.  We chose those because they don't put out so much heat.

 

 

[CADjockey]

13 hours ago, JSHarris said:

We ended up buying two Dyson cordless cleaners, one lives upstairs the other downstairs.

 

Ha ha, I was having the same discussion with my wife as we just replaced our old Dyson with a V10 stick.