• Underfloor Heating is commonly used in mainland Europe and is becoming increasingly popular in the UK. It has a number of advantages and disadvantages over a conventional wet radiEven distribution of heat across the room
• Easy to install requiring no special skills
• Unobtrusive
• No restriction on the placement of furniture
• Quiet in use
• Very little maintenance is required
• Individual room temperature control
• No risk of contact with hot surfaces

Most underfloor heating systems are warm water (wet) systems although electric (dry) systems are available. For wet systems, pipes are buried in screed, or run underneath the floor surface. Underfloor heating systems operate by transferring heat from a very large surface, which is only slightly hotter than the room. Radiator systems transfer heat from a very small surface, which is much hotter than the room, which is very hot. 
Typically, the temperature of the water in the underfloor heating system pipe is 45 – 65oC (compare this to approximately 80oC flow and surface temperature of a radiator system) and this warms the floor to a temperature of 25 – 28oC, which is comfortable to walk on. In order that the whole floor area receives heat, the layout of the pipework should be considered carefully. The supplier of the underfloor pipework will be able to provide details on the best layout for your application.

At the design stage there are a number of points that need to be considered: 

• Insulating affects of floor finish e.g. Carpets
• Protection of floor finish from cracking
• Accommodation of thermal gains e.g. conservatory
• Location of manifolds
• Zoning requirements
• Boiler/pump position and size

There are several different pipework layouts which can be used. No matter what the layout is, this will not affect the control requirements. 

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