Found a copy of ‘Build It’ mag in WHSmith. Not very informative actually – just skims the top. This issue was mostly full of stuff and ads on underfloor heating (which is rather unsuitable for a standard house with floorboards like mine it seems…)

What’s the lowdown on wet underfloor heating as I’m curious but not buying (It just makes me think of swimming pools ;))

you can have it with rafters and floorboards as well, I've just fitted it in my new house, very effective it is too, we have chipboard flooring, and carpet, and it works well, even throught that lot, I'll send you a few pics by e-mail, I can never get this pictures lark!!

got a bad rep when it first came out part of the problem was the plastic piping sagging between joists and creating ir locks which were hard to shift these and other problems are supposed to have been ironed out but it takes time for the bad press to be forgotten about.

Friends house in france has underfloor heating everywhere and its very nice stepping out of the shower onto a warm tiled floor. Just about to start some major building works to our house and would love to get it installed in the new kitchen and on-suite but worried about price and how it would work.

How is yours connected up Ron? Combi/Tank/Manifold?

We have a new build, I have personally fitted the heating upstairs and down, with a seperate manifold for each, downstairs has 7 zones, each with its own thermostat, upstairs has 4, the manifold is plumbed to the boiler direct, and each can be switched on or off by using 2 zone valves, (sounds more complicated that it is!!) the boiler is a Combi, which has inside it a 60ltr hot water store, you do not use this water, it is used to heat what comes out of the taps, and goes to the manifolds, it has a heat exchanger within it.
So far, we have only had the heating on for about a week, (this year) and it seems very effective, the level of heat retention during the day is excellent, even though I have gone for a wooden floor up and down, and not a screed downstairs which is said to be even better, as it retains the heat like a big storage heater, we have one room which has a 5m high cieling, so underfloor was really the only way top go, as that room is also open to upstairs, had we had radiators, upstairs would have cooked, and we'd have neede blankets downstairs!!
If someone has a way of hosting pics, I have about 1590 pics that show the build from start to finish, incuding the heating, but clearly they wouldn't all need to be hosted. They could then be put on here, I am hopeless at such things, (but ok at building!)
so if someone wants to help, let me know!

Ron.

PS, any questions, ask!!!

mine is more difficult as we have suspended wood flooring downstairs as well as up. Dont fancy heating the well vented area below the house ;)

No problems with hosting pictures if you cut it down to 10-20 just email them to me.

Yeah - what is the 'lag' between switching the heating on, warming the water & then finally getting the heat up through the floorboards & carpet and onto yer chin?

Do the floorboards tap tap like mad as they expand?

Can you block up airbricks if you have a proper ventilated ground floor suspended floor?

Ron - try fotopic.net (or .co.uk). Scratch your head for a bit but then you'll get it!

Doing suspended floors downstairs would not be a problem, seeing as you put insulation between the rafters anyway, so you would just need to be a bit careful at how you fit it, and the time delay on ours is very small, ie, if you put it on, within 1/2 hr it's up to temp, but clearly the higher you have the thermostat set, the longer it takes, the pipe on ours is 20mm, so there's plenty of water going round, some systems use a small bore pipe, they simply cannot be as good, the more water, the more heat!!
We have chipboard flooring, and then carpet, I have yet to hear a single creak form the floor, it doesn't move at-all!
Will try posting pics, wish me luck!
Ron.

My understanding is blocking up the vents is a no no.

For mine was going to nail a couple of small strips of wood to the bottom of the rafters and use them to support some installation blocks. Then on top put reflective mat and heating pipes. The floor is currently standard boards but as we want to have tiles was going to lay chipboard and then tiles.

Thats basically the way to do it, hopefully the air bricks would be below the rafters, so the area below could still be vented.
http://www.warmafloor.co.uk
they're the people that supplied ours, take a look!!

Ron,

Any very rough guesses on the costs for the kit and also number of man hours to fit. Based on two rooms with floor up and very easy to run pipes to.

Bit of the long shot i know ;)

Did it in a mates Conservatory for him, the kit was £350, but that was JUST the manifold, and the pipes, for the whole of our house the kit cost nearly 3k, but we needed all the insulation etc on top of that, seeing as you're in hants, why not ring, or even better go and see warmafloor, if ther's justification needed for the trip, the girl in their reception has very nice appendages!!!!!
Man hours depend how handy you are.

Hopefully there should be some pics coming...........
If you look closely in this one, you can just make out the manifold behind the biot of stud wall on the right, this is the upstairs by the way..
http://images.fotopic.net/?id=1352597&outx=600&oq=0

this is one of the bedrooms, the pipes run between the rafters, and you notch them at the ends for the pipe to cross over.
http://images.fotopic.net/?id=1352598&outx=600&oq=0

Yopu can see the ends a bit better in this one!
http://images.fotopic.net/?id=1352596&outx=600&oq=0

I hope this helps., and works!

Ron.

My old man worked for british gas installing central heating around 30 years ago and I was always willing to help install systems for friends so pretty handy ;)