underfloor heating, definition of

Underfloor heating is where the method of heating a room is provided through the floor. In essence a heating element, be it electrical or water based is embedded into the floor during construction. Then when heat is required in the room this is turned on to slowly heat the floor itself, which then raises the temperature in the room.

The big advantage with this approach is there are no visible evidence that the room is heated (i.e. vents, A/C units, etc) - keeping things very neat and tidy. The other big plus is with the floor being heated it is actually warm to walk on bare foot.

The downside is that you can only really do this well with tiled floors as you need a good heat conductor immediately above the elements. Also it is not 'instant' heat rather it will take a good hour to get up to temperature in most cases.

Although given the high thermal mass of such a floor, you can use this to your advantage by heating the floor during 'off-peak' times to then slowly release the heat during the following day.

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Related Tags: heating, energy efficiency