Why not install some understated luxury into your home? Ivor Copeland Heating and Plumbing Services are proud to offer their customers an underfloor heating solution to meet their individual requirements.

Underfloor heating is the preferred choice for space heating in homes today. It is the luxury option which, in twenty years time, will be the technology that is routinely employed in higher value refurbishment and building projects. There are two types of underfloor heating: a wet system that uses water heated by a boiler and a dry system that uses electricity. Why is underfloor heating such an attractive option?  Here are some of the reasons.

COMFORT Conventional radiator heating systems rely on convection currents to move the heat around the room: by design there must be considerable air movement in order for the space to heat up. In these systems the warmest temperatures are located near the radiator. Because the surface area of the radiator is not very big in relation to the volume of the room the radiator needs to be considerably hotter than the desired temperature of the room as a whole. In contrast, in an underfloor heating system the warmest air is at the floor and because the surface area of the floor is large in comparison to the volume of the room this warmest temperature is not much different from the desired whole room temperature. An underfloor heating system delivers a much more even heat with less air movement and therefore fewer draughts than a conventional radiator system.

RUNNING COSTS An underfloor heating system requires water to do be delivered to it at much lower temperatures than a radiator system so there are energy efficiency savings to be made. There are also no radiators for dust to gather behind and this allows for much more flexibility in the placing of furniture items within a room.

Underfloor heating can be installed in a new-build situation whereby the heating pipes are buried in the concrete floor. These concrete underfloor heating systems retain their heat for long periods of time and consequently take quite a while to come up to temperature.  Not all of us though are in the luxury position of building our own house when we decide that a little underfloot warmth is just what we want.

A REBURBISHMENT OPTION?   Polypipe have recently brought to the market a lovely product which can be laid over existing wooden floor boards raising the floor level by only 18mm. Instead of the room being heated by a radiator induced convection current you can have a more gentle warmth eminating from the floor level up.  The heat comes from your domestic heating boiler in just the same way that your radiators are heated.

A DRY SYSTEM?  Electric systems are a useful way of heating a small tiled floor in a room that is not used for long periods at a time, such as in a bathroom. An electric underfloor system do is not connected to the boiler.  Tiled bathroom floors can become slippery when wet which can be hazardous. One way of reducing this is by heating the floor so that water can evaporate more quickly. Cold tiles under bare feet can be quite unpleasant but a floor that is not cold to the touch is easily achievable by installing an electric underfloor heating mat under the tiles. The heater is run from an ordinary electric socket and can be fitted with a timer. These electric systems are inexpensive to install in a small area but the running costs are higher than wet systems.

CALL 023 9246 7328     or   click here to email us service@ivorcopelandltd.co.uk