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UFH Spreader Plates


Triassic

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I'm about to order the UFH parts to go under a suspended timber first floor in my new build (bedrooms below and kitchen/family room above). Having priced up the aluminium spreader plates they come in a pricy £803 !!!

 

Do really need spreader plates, or could I simply clip the pipe to the underside of the chipboard floor using plastic clips?

 

The house is highly insulated and I have a feeling this element of the UFH might never be used, so would hate to "waste" money on spreader plates !

 

All thought welcome......

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I've gone for spreader plates on the basis that if I'm having UFH upstairs, I want it to be as effective as possible.  It's a catch 22 situation, I suppose, in that you need to be able to compare one with and one without, but it would be too fiddly  (and expensive) to add retrospectively if you want to add them later.

 

The other thing to think about is what centres your joists are at. Mine were put at 400mm - as well as the floor being less bouncy, the spreader plates wouldn't have been wide enough at 600 centres.

Edited by vivienz
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I don’t have spreader plates. The supplier of the kit (Wunda) never specified them and we didn’t know we should have had them so the pipes were laid on foil as per the photo and then wood flooring put on top. The first thing @Nickfromwales said was ‘why don’t you have spreader plates’ but tbh now that the UFH is working ok upstairs and down it seems fine upstairs. I was told that I would feel warm bits of floor and cooler bits as the heat would spread evenly but I haven’t noticed that at all in truth. 

 

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Oh I did something like @newhome above but I put in a dry biscuit mix (7 sand to 1 cement) 

 

This is super cheap, easy to do yourself and acts as a thermal mass and controls the heat better than the aluminium plates and improves the sound insulation. Can't remember the cost exactly now but a guess was something like 10 bags of cement and a ton bag of sand for less than €100 for all of upstairs.

 

IMG_20170603_134632.jpg.489b5be8b7ced87790cb6580a80fbb45.jpg

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I did something similar only different  with upstairs

as it was a retro fit

Iifted chip board

fitted batons to sides of joists ,then cut PUR to fit the space between joists  supported on  these batons 

then laid UFH piping on top of  PUR

had it so the pipes were tight up to flooring when finished.

I like the biscuit mix better but would  couldn,t afford rising floor height to do it that 

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As I've also got to insulate the floor void, so I was wondering if I could simply use this grooved, between the joists, 50mm thick EPS insulation, from Pro-warm. At around £9.50 per board, it would save me spending £4.50 each on spreader plates?

 

 in-joist-batten-system.jpg.ef4d60f3b96e27354e426cf9d2f47833.jpg

 

 

Edited by Triassic
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54 minutes ago, Triassic said:

Do really need spreader plates, or could I simply clip the pipe to the underside of the chipboard floor using plastic clips?

if you do that it  will still work  yes  but not as good ,

not sure skimping on floor where you are living   all the time is a good idea 

cheap alternative ? stick tinfoil to underside of floor ?

assuming  you are sealing this off from below to keep any heat you add  trapped  in that space 

and hopefully most goes the way you want it too --up

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6 minutes ago, Triassic said:

As I've also got to insulate the floor void, so I was wondering if I could simply use this grooved, between the joists, 50mm thick EPS insulation, from Pro-warm. At around £9.50 per board, it would save me spending £4.50 each on spreader plates?

 

 in-joist-batten-system.jpg.ef4d60f3b96e27354e426cf9d2f47833.jpg

 

 

was just writing  what did

which is similar--make them touch hard against floor.

 

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1 hour ago, Triassic said:

I'm about to order the UFH parts to go under a suspended timber first floor in my new build (bedrooms below and kitchen/family room above). Having priced up the aluminium spreader plates they come in a pricy £803 !!!

 

Do really need spreader plates, or could I simply clip the pipe to the underside of the chipboard floor using plastic clips?

 

The house is highly insulated and I have a feeling this element of the UFH might never be used, so would hate to "waste" money on spreader plates !

 

All thought welcome......

Who did you get a quote off?

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I got a quote off http://mgbpress.co.uk/services/underfloor-heating-plates/they were the cheapest I could find.

 

The U-fix plates (fit pipe from below) come in two specifications:

Single groove (165 x 1000 x 0.7mm, for 15 or 16mm pipe) - £2.55 per plate

Two groove (310 x 1000 x 0.7mm, 200mm c/c, 15 or 16mm pipe) - £4.20 per plate

 

The "J" plates are all 1000mm long and 0.7mm thick, but can be made at pretty much any width you could require. As a guide, a 150 x 1000 x 0.7mm "J" plate would be £1.65 per unit.

 

Prices exclude carriage and VAT.

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We put UFH upstairs in our previous house. I battened out the joists and put 50mm cellotex on it, the pipes were then put in and a mix of aggregate and cement (no sand) put in every alternate joist space. The SE didn't think there was enough strength in the spans for a normal screed over the pir. The ensuite had shorter spans so we went for standard screed. 

The standard screed worked best, followed by the aggregate, you could tell which were the 'alternate' joists. This was in a very leaky house though, with much lower flow temperatures in a more efficient build I am not sure how noticeable it would be (we had t&g solid wood floors). 

Not sure how this might work with I-beams or posijoists as battening would be problematical. 

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5 minutes ago, newhome said:

Don’t you need to worry about the joists if you use the biscuit mix because of the weight? I think @Redoctober had to upgrade his joists (or something). It’s probably in his blog somewhere. 

Mine was designed at the outset to be using biscuit mix so the joists were sized for the extra dead load on them.

 

So downstairs we had UFH in biscuit mix.  Upstairs, just in the bathroom and en-suite we have UFH with spreader plates.  I have to say we are disappointed with the heat output from the upstairs.  It may just be because the heat has to get through a layer of chipboard flooring, the tanking membrane, tile adhesive then porcelain tiles that it seems less effective compared to downstairs where it only has to get through 20mm engineered wood flooring? 

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