Under Floor Heating/ electric

SPUDZ

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I am planning to tile my kitchen floor. My house has electric storage heating system. Am wondering if anyone has experience with the electric kind that can be laid under tiles? Would this kind of system be sufficient to heat the whole kitchen (approx 17sm) or would I still need to keep the old ugly storage heater aswell?!Thanks for advice
 
Yes, I installed electric underfloor heating system under stone tiles in my kitchen a couple of years ago.

It works quite well without any other radiators in the room. Very occassionally I suplement it with an electric fan heater if we are being very sedate (watching TV). However because it's my kitchen I'd have the tempertature a bit lower than a sitting room.
Cost wise, it's about €40 - €50 a month to run, without night rate electricity.

But ...

Between the supplier and the contractor that laid it I had two big problems which could have been avoided.

First, like you I had a fairly largish area to cover & I had to buy 2 mats. The supplier told me to wire the second mat into the end of the first one. This proved wrong, both mats had to be wired separately to the thermostat. I had to dig up several tiles in my very expensive floor to get to the join in the two mats.

The supplier promised me they would compensate me with a free mat, but when I went to take them up on it recently, they offered me a pretty paltry discount. I am looking at my options to sue them.

Second problem was with the thermostat & floor sensor. The floor sensor, which is a bit of wire, came with a piece of conduit. The idea is that you can replace the wire easily. Unfortunately the contractor didn't bother to read the instructions & didn't use the conduit. When the system wouldn't work & I traced it to the sensor, I couldn't replace it. I finally got it working by disconnecting the sensor from the thermostat & running it on a room temperature sensor only.
 
Hi Paddy !
How large is your kitchen and how are the €40-50/month calculated - over the entire year or just the 6-8 month per year, relating to the heating season? Would that be a bill of around €300.-/year to keep the kitchen warm (plus the occasional el. fan heater)?
Thanks
 
Thanks Paddy, thats some good information to avoid some pitfalls. Does seem a bit costly to run it but I suppose what isn't now a days! How expensive is it to lay? just a general estimate would be great thanks
 
My kitchen is about 4M X 6M, but I only used 18M of heating mat because I have units around two sides & I was told not to bother putting mat under the units.

Cost-wise I'd say €300 a year would easily cover it. I was saying about €40+ a month because that's what I reckoned my bill went up by, but that was based on one winter, last year, and because we were still working on the house the kitchen was doubling up as a living room. Initially I had the thermostat set to 20 degrees, but when I got the bill I turned it down to 18. So far this year I have it turned on at 15 degrees, and have not yet used the fan heater. The cost of running the fan heater was negligable because I used it so little.

Laying it was much trouble, it just went down and we tiled on top of it. I didn't get it poriced as a separate line item, but I'd be surprised if it added anything significant.

I am hoping that it'll
 
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