If you are thinking of installing underfloor heating in your home, then it means that you will have a warm floor to walk on and no more cold feet!
However, there are a number of options available with such a solution so read on in our electric underfloor heating guide to find out more.
Electric Underfloor Heating Guide: Why Consider Loose Wire?
What Is Covered In Our Electric Underfloor Heating Guide?
Underfloor heating can heat the whole room, and it can allow more accurate and greater temperature control, rather than traditional central heating systems. With underfloor heating, each room will have an individual thermostat, allowing you to only heat the rooms that need to be heated, saving you power and money.
Investing in electric underfloor heating is something that can be so worthwhile, as it can make a huge difference to the whole of your home. But there are a number of options you need to consider before you can make an informed choice on the best solution for your particular circumstances. For example, the best option may be to install heating mats or conversely choosing loose cable underfloor heating may suit your circumstances better.
What Is Electric Underfloor Heating?
Loose cable electric underfloor heating is an installation that is made from a reel of electric underfloor heating cable. For electric underfloor heating under carpet, this wire is spread out across the floor, to get the level of heating that you desire.
If you want to get the room heated up as quickly as possible, then the closer the wires the better. You can also get electric underfloor heating mats as a way to heat the floor. However, these mats come in particular sizes, so it can be harder to fit them into smaller spaces or around particular fixed features like you might find in a bathroom, compared to using the electric underfloor heating loose wire option.
Electric Underfloor Heating Installation
So how do you Install electric underfloor heating systems? First, it's important that it is installed based on all of the available space in the room, as the heating cables cannot be cut due to the heating element. However, the cables can be extended if they need to be. As briefly mentioned above, you can get different desired levels of heating, depending on how far apart you spread the heating cables. This is one step to really consider when you are installing your electric underfloor heating.
During this underfloor heating installation process, you also need to think about making the floor level again, once the underfloor heating has been laid. You could add tile adhesive to the tiles before you put the tiles or other flooring back on top. You could also think about using a self-levelling compound onto the underfloor heating system, in order to have a smooth surface ready before putting down the floor covering.
Advantages And Disadvantages Of Underfloor Heating Using Cables Compared To Heating Mats
Using cables over mats for your electric underfloor heating detail brings a host of benefits:
- With underfloor heating systems, you can heat a room without having the need of other sources of heat, so you could eliminate radiators in the room for a much cleaner look.
- With heating cables, you can have heating in a variety of different areas in a room. With mats, you have to use the size of the mats and that can make them more awkward to fit and leave more blank spaces that don’t get heated.
- You can use electric underfloor heating with the majority of floor coverings, but with heating cables, they’ll work best with stone, tile, or wooden floors.
- One of the disadvantages of underfloor heating is that if there is a fault, you will need to remove the flooring.
- Heating mats will need to be protected from very heavy loads such as furniture, so that you don’t damage the system.
Electric Underfloor Heating Running Costs
You should also consider electric underfloor heating UK running costs; is this type of warmup flooring expensive? The factors to consider are how well insulated the floor is, as well as what kind of flooring will be on top of the heating cables, the size of the room, how often it is used, and your current energy tariff. You can roughly think about the running cost of approximately 2p for every hour of use per 1m² in the home.
Whilst there are a number of factors to think about, getting loose wire electric underfloor heating can be a great option for you. For modern homes that want to save money, it can be an ideal solution.
Get in touch with us today to see how we can help with your underfloor heating.