If you are looking for underfloor heating installers in Milton Keynes, then at UK Screeds you are in the right place. Not only do we install the finest liquid screeds in the UK, and have been doing so for nearly 20 years, but we can also install your underfloor heating for you as well.

We get asked a lot of questions about underfloor heating, and that is only to be expected. After all, it is not a project that you want to undertake lightly if you are considering retrofitting it to your home. But even if you are having a new home built, there are many questions as to why it is so much better than a radiator system.

The first thing to know is that there are two different types of underfloor heating, one of which is electric, and the other which is water-based. An electric underfloor heating system consists of either a long electric heating cable or a heating mat into which electric heating cables are fixed. Either of them is very easy to install and simply needs connecting to your electricity supply.

A water-based system uses a very long pipe which runs back and forth under your floor and is filled with water heated by your boiler, or another system, which is pumped around the circuit. This is more expensive to install than an electric system but is a lot cheaper to run.

Either system will heat your rooms a lot more evenly than a radiator system as they cover the whole room evenly. There are other benefits as well, as even an electric underfloor heating system will use a lot less energy than radiators do because it only needs to be heated to a maximum of 29°C compared with the 65°C to 75°C of a radiator.

In addition, the underfloor heating system works using radiated heat whereas the radiator works by convection. What that means is that the radiator will heat the air in the room which then heads towards the ceiling and disperses around the room. Unfortunately, this does not distribute heat evenly, so some parts of the room will be colder than others. It also moves dust around the room which is not good for people with asthma or allergies, but this does not happen with underfloor heating.

You Lose Some Height In The Room

If you are considering fitting underfloor heating retrospectively, you should know that you will lose some height in the room. This is because the heating cables or pipes need to be covered with a layer of screed. If you use a sand and cement screed it will reduce the room height by about 75mm, and possibly more, whereas using a liquid screed such as we install at UK Screeds will only reduce it by about 45mm.

Some people do make a bit of a song and dance about this, but when you think about it, even 75mm is less than 3”. If you have a ceiling that is, say, 9’ high, it is really not going to make all that much difference. Unless, of course, you are over 8’9” tall!

Of course, if you are building a new home, then the extra height can be taken into account at the planning stage if it is important.

At UK Screeds we only install water-based underfloor heating systems, because of the many advantages that they have. Not the least of these is the ongoing running costs. Electricity is expensive, and the price in future is only going one way. It costs far more to run electric underfloor heating that it does water -based. So, although the water-based system costs a bit more to install, and takes a bit longer too, the savings continue for evermore.

Then the liquid screed that we use to cover the heating pipes has several advantages too, not the least of which is that it has almost twice the thermal conductivity of traditional sand and cement screed. That means it uses less energy to heat the room to the same temperature. It is also laid thinner than sand and cement has to be laid, so that adds to the ongoing savings as well.

All in all, underfloor heating is well worth it, especially when combined with a liquid screed.