Everyone wants to have warmth and comfort in the house. If it blows cold from the floor, it can cause discomfort, even if the room has excellent renovation and good furniture. Children who like to carry toys on the floor or make something sitting on the carpet can quickly catch a cold. These problems can be solved by laying a special system designed to insulate the coating that is used in the house. Warm floors are different and, knowing their features, it will turn out to choose an economical option that matches the flooring material.
Content:
The best manufacturers of warm floors - which company to choose
For those who are too lazy to study the characteristics of warm floors, you can refer to the products of well-known companies for their production:
1. Devi
2. Gray Hot Heating
3. Hemstedt
4. ProfiTherm
5. Ratey
To see in detail the advantages and disadvantages of specific systems from these brands, you should read the review of popular models of warm pilaf in the article.
For the study of all the key parameters personally prepared material below.
The principle of operation and the device of warm floors
Underfloor heating is a heating system for a dwelling by converting electrical energy into heat, or when a heat exchanger and heat carrier are activated, which are mounted under the flooring. Lay them in the bedroom, living room, kitchen, bath, hallway and loggia.
Some types of warm floors can be placed under any finishing material. Others dry out and deform the wood flooring so they are suitable only for ceramics and stone. This system is used for various purposes: for a brief heating of the bathroom at the time of the procedures, for seasonal additional heating of the children's room or balcony, for constant heating of the house or apartment.
The structure of a heated floor includes:
- concrete base;
- warming layer;
- foil strip reflecting radiation and directing it into the room;
- a heating element;
- concrete screed;
- finishing material (tile, laminate, parquet, linoleum, stone).
The principle of operation is to apply voltage to the electrical elements in the floor or to start circulation of the coolant, which heats the concrete, the finish coating and contributes to filling the entire room with warm air from the bottom up. Temperature adjustment is carried out by sensors and power setting units or by the amount of fuel supplied to the boiler.
Types of warm floors
There are several main types of warm floors, which are divided according to the principle of heat source and type of heating.
Water
They are made of metal-plastic flexible tubes, stacked snake or spiral and filled with concrete. Requires boiler, pump, manifolds and fittings. If improperly laid, they may not work very effectively due to the cooling of the coolant. Suitable for private homes as primary or secondary heating.
Advantages:
- cheap if you already have a boiler and a pump;
- low cost of water;
- suitable for any floor covering;
- long service life;
- can work as auxiliary or main heating (the water supply to the desired room is cut off by a tap).
Disadvantages:
- difficult to repair;
- problem to put yourself;
- does not function without a pump;
- not suitable for apartments (forbidden to connect to central heating) and rooms with low ceilings.
Electric
It is made of cable laid in a concrete tie or on glue under the topcoat. The element converts electricity into heat energy.Suitable for apartments, houses, cottages, as the main or additional heating. Practical in the bathroom and in the kitchen.
Advantages:
- long service life;
- consumes little electricity;
- easily bends and keeps within under any turns of the room;
- smooth adjustment of temperature.
Disadvantages:
- requires raising the height of the floor;
- electromagnetic radiation appears in the room;
- not suitable for laminate flooring;
- long installation with concrete work.
Film infrared
They represent a thin carbon film connected by contacts with flat linear wires. When voltage is applied, carbon paste begins to form infrared radiation. Rolls can be cut in special places with a pitch of 25 cm. Suitable for bathrooms, loggias and children's rooms as auxiliary heating.
Advantages:
- large variety of sizes;
- interacts with all types of finishing coatings;
- easy access to repair;
- does not raise the height of the floor;
- part of the film works if the contacts are damaged;
- possible rearrangement to another location.
Disadvantages:
- a large number of contacts requires accuracy during installation and integrity testing;
- more suitable as additional heating.
Parameters choice of warm floors
Knowing the key parameters of the choice of warm floors, you will find the optimal system that will perform its role well and will not spoil the flooring material in the house.
Type of flooring
The choice of heating system depends on the materials with which it is planned to cover the floors. The wrong combination can destroy or partially spoil the flooring elements, which will lead to undesirable repair and additional costs.
The cable provides a large amount of local heat, which adversely affects wood materials. It dries up their structure, contributing to the increase of cracks and deformation of parquet and laminate tiles. Electric elements are well suited for tiled floors in the bathroom or stone blocks in the cottage in the kitchen, hallway.
The water system has a more delicate warm-up due to cooling of the coolant as it moves in the pipes. It is well suited for tile, as well as parquet and linoleum. Film with infrared rays is the most careful source of heating, so it can be laid everywhere: under ceramics, vinyl floors, carpet, wood, linoleum.
Heating purpose
The choice of warm floors depends on their purpose. If you plan to replace the main heating radiators, and this system will be located in all rooms, then it is practical to put metal pipes under the concrete screed. Water and gas are affordable and relatively cheap substances to heat the whole house with. This will be practical for a private building.
If it is necessary to warm up the room periodically for use (bath, loggia), and a quick effect is required, then it is optimal to lay the IR film. It heats up almost instantly and allows you to enjoy the heat. To give, where they live quite rarely, it is worth buying an electrical system made of cables. This gives enough heat energy, warms the building well and does not require the installation of a boiler with a pump.
Power
This parameter affects the maximum temperature and the heating rate of the room. If residents are comfortable at 20-24 degrees, or the house has a second heating, then you can choose a system with an indicator of 110 W / m². This will maintain a comfortable temperature and save energy.
For lovers of warmer conditions, it is worth looking for systems with parameters 150-170 W / m². This is practical for bathrooms and loggias, so as not to freeze there when the onset of deep autumn, when centralized heating has not yet been turned on. Models with a value of 220 W / m² are able to completely replace the heat from batteries and are suitable for arranging an apartment and refusing a central heating system.
Urgent commissioning
Plays a role and time through which it is possible to use floors after installation.If the repair period is not strictly limited, and other parameters allow, you can use a cable or a water system. They are laid on a warmed base on top of the foil layer and are poured with a concrete screed. The latter requires complete drying from several weeks to a month. Only after that the structure can be put into operation.
For an urgent connection, when there is no time to wait for the concrete to dry out (deep autumn, an urgent move with small children to a new home), it is reasonable to choose a film that is laid under the flooring material (parquet, laminate, linoleum). This will allow you to immediately use all the possibilities of a warm floor.
Sizes and shapes
Further selection of warm floors associated with the laying of thermal elements in the area. For a rectangular room will suit any option. But if you plan to lay the system in a room with columns or through the corridors, in rooms with an angular layout, you should use an electric cable. It bends easily and repeats any geometric shapes.
Metal-plastic pipes have a certain minimum radius of 100 mm, which must be taken into account in narrow rooms. The film with infrared rays is cut multiply by a step of 25 cm and allows you to simulate small areas on the balcony and in the bathroom.
Floor height
In rooms with low ceilings, it is worth considering the total layer on which the floor will rise. Here, variants with cable or pipes will be less desirable, since they are placed in a concrete screed with a layer up to 200 mm. Indoors with a wall height of 2500 mm it will significantly reduce the space and give the room a basement view. In such situations, the best solution is a film whose layer is about 1 mm. For cottages and private houses with ceilings of 3 m and above, any options are possible.
Repair options
Warm floors can last for 15-20 years. But this does not mean that for such a period nothing will happen to them. If repair is required, it is possible to reach the heating elements with different levels of complexity. The easiest way to repair the film floor, which is under the parquet or laminate. Raising the linoleum is easy to replace the segment or clean the contact. The IR system works even when the connection is broken in one or several strips, since the voltage is applied to each line separately.
When cable or water floors are laid in a concrete screed and covered with ceramic tiles on top, you will have to disassemble the finishing layer and break the concrete in the problem area (pipe flow, cable break). But this happens very rarely because the system is protected from mechanical damage at depth in the floor.
Related work and costs
The allowable budget for related work also affects the choice of underfloor heating. All systems require insulation and foil layer under them. The cable fits into the concrete screed and needs only a socket. The film in this regard is the most affordable and quickly mounted under the flooring (linoleum, parquet).
Plastic pipes for liquid coolant are cheaper, but such a system will need a heat source (boiler), distribution manifolds, a fitting, and a pump for pumping. Therefore, the associated costs increase by several times and those who want to save should not consider this option. But if the above elements for water heating are already in the house, the purchase of pipes and pouring concrete will be a budget solution.
What a warm floor to choose
Depending on the various construction conditions and purpose of the system, it is possible to describe the optimal parameters for specific tasks:
1. In a cottage with high ceilings, it is best to purchase underfloor heating, which will serve as the main heating. On top of it you can put any finishing material (tile, carpet, parquet). The flexibility of the pipes will allow to lay the heating elements in all rooms and corridors.
2. For an apartment with ceilings of more than 2500 mm, a cable system with a capacity of 220 W / m², which can be covered with a tile or carpet on a layer of concrete screed, will be suitable. The cable will turn out to bend under the necessary forms.The heat-insulated floor can be used as the main heating and to refuse the centralized.
3. For additional heating of the bathroom, loggia, nursery or in the case of low ceilings, it is worth purchasing a film floor that will not affect the height. Power is enough from 110 to 150 W / m². From above you can lay carpet, laminate, parquet, tile.
4. At the cottage, for seasonal heating, suitable cable floor with a capacity of 170 W / m². It is poured with concrete and covered with tiles or carpet. Upon arrival, you can quickly warm up the premises, and after departure the system does not require additional maintenance (water drainage, gas sealing).
How much is a warm floor
Understanding the parameters of the choice of warm floors for various needs, you can calculate the cost of materials for their arrangement in a room of 10 m²:
1. For the cottage metal pipe will cost 2000 rubles. But this price does not take into account the cost of the boiler (20,000–3,000,000 rubles), the pump (3,000 rubles), manifolds and fittings (2,000 rubles). If this is all set earlier, the materials will cost very cheap.
2. As the main heating in the apartment cable will cost 20,000 rubles.
3. For periodic heating of the bathroom and the nursery will have to spend 15,000 rubles.
4. Warm floor to the cottage is estimated at 18,000 rubles.
It will be interesting to friends too
