UFH system lots of help required

[ProDave]

I put the heating on here on Friday.  Unlike you lot down south basking in summer temperatures still, it was a high of 7 degrees here today after being close to 0 overnight.  It's been an average of about 10 degrees for well over a week now. And grey and overcast, so no solar gain to speak of to help things along.

 

Had we still been in the caravan we would have been heating it for weeks now.,

 

I am monitoring my energy input and will make a post about it at the end of the week when I have a full week or recording but the first 3 days suggests it is following the expected heat loss model.

[zoe61]

On 28/09/2018 at 21:50, ProDave said:

Even in 2003 we put 150mm of floor insulation, and that was possibly not really enough for UFH.

 

Do you mean 150mm PIR on a ground floor, this seems normal/slightly above todays values. What makes you say its possibly not enough?

[ProDave]

5 minutes ago, zoe61 said:

 

Do you mean 150mm PIR on a ground floor, this seems normal/slightly above todays values. What makes you say its possibly not enough?

No that was 150mm of mineral wool type insulation.  New house has 300mm

[zoe61]

Thanks everyone for your comments so far. Based upon this and reading more topics on this forum I think we will only install wet UFH downstairs and fit radiators for the bedroom floors, with electric UFH in bathrooms. My reasoning being the house should be very well insulated and based upon peoples experiences the heating will have minimal use. It seems a lot of money to install something that may not be used that often, I feel we would be better spending this money else where. Plus I believe we will have faster response times with radiators which is a important factor for bedrooms.

 

But there's still time for me to change my mind and as I'm designing and procuring the stuff I can do this without the other half knowing ?.....so watch this space.

[Triassic]

If the house is well insulated as you say, I wouldn’t install radiators in the bedrooms, they could be a waste of money.

 

Our house is well insulated and my wife left the bedroom door open all day, consequently it was the same temperaure as the rest of the house. We had to close the bedroom door and open the bedroom windows to cool it down to get if to a cooler temperature for sleeping.

[Lin]

I  made a similar choice to Zoe.

It's hard to know what will happen; you want to make "fool proof" plans before the final finish. Even if the rads are hardly ever used, you have to think if it really was cold for sustained period would you want to be scrabbling together electric heaters or just turning on the rads.

I picked up that electic wall heaters for occasional use do not reflect well on EPC's ? Another reason for rads maybe.

[ProDave]

15 minutes ago, Lin said:

 

I picked up that electic wall heaters for occasional use do not reflect well on EPC's ? Another reason for rads maybe.

Then don't tell your EPC assessor that you have them, tell them the house is so well insulated they are not needed

[Jeremy Harris]

I just fitted fused connection units in the bedrooms, together with plywood backing boards behind the plasterboard, so that we could choose to fit electric wall heaters later if we felt they were needed.  As it happens they aren't, but I'd guess the extra cost of the FCUs in the walls, ready for them, may have added £20 to the build cost.  What's more, having the connection points available for future use has no impact on the EPC or SAP rating.

[ProDave]

1 minute ago, JSHarris said:

I just fitted fused connection units in the bedrooms, together with plywood backing boards behind the plasterboard, so that we could choose to fit electric wall heaters later if we felt they were needed.  As it happens they aren't, but I'd guess the extra cost of the FCUs in the walls, ready for them, may have added £20 to the build cost.  What's more, having the connection points available for future use has no impact on the EPC or SAP rating.

I did the same but just fitted blank plates, and the other end of the cable is inside the CU but not terminated to anything yet.

[Jeremy Harris]

2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I did the same but just fitted blank plates, and the other end of the cable is inside the CU but not terminated to anything yet.

 

 

Down here in Part P land that could possibly cause a problem, as it would be a new circuit, so would need an EIC and Part P chit when commissioned.  By connecting up the FCU, but not connecting anything to it on the appliance side, those circuits are included in the Part P EIC, and it's then fine under Part P rules for me to connect an appliance to an existing circuit at a later date, if needed.