Under floor heating/ new build/warm water or electric ? Help and information on all topics relating to your central heating, air conditioning and ventilation issues.

[castaway]

I am building a 25sqm (int dims) conservatory and have just about got to the point where I have to make a dicision about what form of heating I'm going to use...

Options are:

Under floor warm water.
Under floor Elecric
Skirting board heaters

SWMBO will not consider Rads

The slab is done and well insulated (100mm ) and I havnt screeded the floor yet so have all options open.

I cannot find any price comparisons for the [b]operating[/b] costs of the warm water u/floor v the electric.

Can anyone help with this please ??

All the costs for instalation are similar with electric coming in cheapest.

All best Nick

[ericmark]

There are two types of electric underfloor heating. One uses resistive cable in a loop the other uses two cables with special material between which is to some extent self regulating. The latter far better as no problem with overheating under furniture. Water also does not overheat under furniture and normally gas is cheaper than electricity so water normally considered as best system. But may need extra expansion tanks adding with sealed system and can become expensive to fit. Skirting board heaters are quicker easy to control but make noise and they will not work with all condensation boilers. Unlike normal radiators instead of stopping water flow it just switches the fans on and off so sends hot water back to boiler this can prematurely shut down the boiler so check you can use them on your boiler first.