Many experts claim that heated floors are a self-sufficient heating system that will effectively heat rooms of any size and cubic capacity, even in the North of Russia. At the same time, the level of comfort increases: the feet are always warm, and at the level of 1.5-1.8 meters a slight decrease in temperature is expected. This thermal regime, according to doctors, is the most optimal for wellness. In addition, when heating the floor, convection processes affect the entire volume of air in the room, which reduces the cost of maintaining a comfortable microclimate.
There are several installation methods, the most common is to lay heating pipes in a layer, or thermal insulation and humidity, or slightly above it. Thermal insulation is placed directly on the construction spout, which should be selected depending on what is under the roof; there is foil moisture insulation on it.
How to make a warm floor from heating. Device technology
The rod should be poured out after the leak test. Also, don't forget about the edge insulation where the floor is in contact with the wall, as well as the stretching that needs to be done because the floor gets hot when it heats up. The last layer is finishing the floor in the form of terracotta or panels.
Disadvantages of water floors
Underfloor heating idea warm water It is far from new, but due to the lack of durable pipes, it was not implemented on a large scale for a long time. A water floor has a big disadvantage - it is difficult, almost impossible, to repair. Therefore, until recently, such systems were not very common: it is unwise to lay metal pipes in the screed. They quickly collapse, and breaking the screed for repair is difficult and expensive. With the advent of warm water floors on the market, they began to be used more often. Somewhere along with radiators, and somewhere instead of them. And all because good quality MP pipes can serve for decades, bend well, and are sold in coils up to 200 meters long.
Heating the surface using significantly less convection results in less dust, dust and other contaminants. This reduces the risk of irritation to the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose and throat. In turn, more low temperature air than conventional systems, protects against sick building syndrome. When installing flooring, it is important to pay attention to the materials in the room that will be exposed to higher temperatures so that they do not release any hazardous compounds or become damaged.
You should choose those that are suitable for the signs and conditions of the floor. This especially applies to all types of rugs and rugs. Due to the risk of fungal development, it is absolutely necessary to dry the screed at the finishing stage, with caution because excessive drying can cause cracking.
But the impossibility of repair is not all disadvantages. There is another significant drawback - the entire pie of a heated floor from hot water takes up about 10 cm. If the ceilings in the room are already low, this is a lot. In this case it is better to do . It is only 1-2cm in height.
Traditional radiators are a solution for existing multi-family buildings where the heat source is usually medium or high temperature. In new buildings it is worth thinking about the heating system. For those who want a mixed system, you can combine underfloor heating and convection with a divider.
In order for the heating effect to be noticeable, the boiler must be started in advance, so it is good to be able to do this remotely using mobile devices. Then such a system can fully satisfy the expectations of the most demanding users.
Another disadvantage is the great inertia of this heating method. Of course, the screed array, in which the coolant pipes are hidden, gently dissipates heat, giving comfort. But a lot of heat goes into heating it. And if you consider that for a comfortable feeling, the water temperature is warm floors should not exceed 40 o C, it is clear that a lot of time will pass until the screed heats up. That is, such heating is optimal for permanent residence and is not suitable for places where you appear periodically: a water floor cannot quickly heat a room.
What is worth knowing is the section where you will find the most important information about our installations. All materials have the appropriate technical approvals required by Polish legislation and hygiene certificates. The idea of underfloor heating is to use the floor surface as a heat source in the living room. The heating plate is placed on the insulating layer. In this system, 70% of the heat is transferred through radiation and only 30% through convection. Underfloor heating provides a feeling of comfort due to uniform heat dissipation throughout the room and favorable temperature distribution in the room.
Warm floors from central heating: legal nuances
If you have an apartment in a multi-storey building, in some cases, the heated floor can be powered from the central heating riser. Installation of this type of heating requires special permission from the housing maintenance organization. If the apartment is located in a new building, you will most likely be given permission. In new buildings, a separate riser is usually provided for connecting this type of heating.
For concrete floors: heating is produced as a concrete slab about 6.5 cm thick, laid on a layer of thermal insulation. For wooden ceilings: heated floors are solved completely differently. The pipe is placed in aluminum heating panels secured with wooden patches to the ceiling beams. Aluminum panels receive heat from the pipes and transfer it directly to the wooden floor, which in turn heats the room. Between the floor beams there are layers of mineral wool, which act as thermal insulation.
This solution is used mainly for wooden floors and wherever it is not possible to make a concrete floor. The floor area can be made from:. ceramic tiles. natural stone panels. parquet. wooden boards. Please note that all flooring materials are underfloor heating approved by the manufacturer. Myths and truths about underfloor heating.
In older homes, problems may arise. Especially if your wiring is single-pipe (this is when each room has a separate riser and the battery is connected from it). The fact is that with such a connection system, if you take too much heat from the riser, the neighbors below will get very cold water. With a single-pipe system, only owners of apartments on the ground floor can obtain permits. The rest are unlikely.
Result: This level of energy efficiency is not achieved by traditional hot plates. An additional advantage of the heater is that it saves about 20% of the electricity required to power the pump. Heat pump installation cost.
Hard to find reliable source information on the cost of installing heat pumps. They include Therefore, since the total cost of installation depends on many factors. The larger the building area, the greater the heat required by the heat pump and therefore requires a larger floor to supply it. Another problem is hot water consumption. If the demand for hot water is high, a heat pump with an internal tank will fail and a system with an external tank must be built. Next thing: fittings for boiler rooms.
If you want to heat the floor, but getting permission is unrealistic, you can power the heated floor from a heating boiler. The design of such a system will be more expensive at the installation stage, but the monthly costs will definitely be lower. Or another option is to install an electric heated floor. It can become an even more attractive option, since when used, the failure of one segment does not affect the performance of the entire floor. Since there are so many segments, you won’t even notice that something is broken there.
Is it economically effective option or optimal system, providing maintenance-free comfort in the building? If the heating system is under floor heating, it is necessary to use a mixing unit, which will reduce the temperature on the floor. This may also include the use of a buffer tank of sufficient capacity. And one more important thing. Which heat pump installation version do you prefer?
To summarize: the total cost depends on too large quantities factors, so we approach each assessment separately. Heat pump in an existing building. With the growing popularity of heat pumps, the percentage of people who would like to install such pumps is growing. However, most of these people are not the people who build new home, but people who would like to connect a heat pump to an existing building.
What does the water heating pie look like?
If installing a heated floor in your home is possible, most likely, as one of the conditions for obtaining permission, a requirement will be put forward to install a heat meter. Agree without hesitation - if you do everything right (meaning insulation), it will be more profitable for you, since you will pay less.
The connection is very high, and in only a few cases, due to higher financial and energy costs, it will simply not be profitable. For buildings heated by fuel oil or gas from a cylinder, a heat pump is required. In addition, the presence of a solid fuel boiler does not exclude the possibility of installing a heat pump. Remember that most heat pumps have the ability to keep our home warm through heaters.
However, before deciding to install, we need to conduct a thorough analysis to help us choose the right options. If possible, you should also check what maximum radiator flow temperature is actually needed to keep your home comfortable.
How to do
The first step to making a warm floor in the apartment (from central heating or from the boiler - it doesn’t matter) - this is a drawing of the project. Transfer the floor plan to paper, indicate the size of the rooms and the location of the risers. Near the risers from which it will be powered, you need to find a place to place the collector unit. This is a device to which the input/output of a centralized heating system is connected on one side, and pipes located in the floor on the other. also contains a coolant temperature control device, and sometimes gates/valves for adjusting the temperature in each circuit.
Contour distribution
Vertical drilling or horizontal collector? First of all, horizontal collectors take up much more space on the site. It is advisable that the place where they were buried should not be later planted or built. Horizontal collectors are regenerated by sun and rain, so their average annual efficiency is lower. In addition, in areas where horizontal collectors are located, vegetation is trapped, often causing grass or shrubs to turn yellow. This is due to lower soil temperatures.
The peculiarity of underfloor heating is that hot water from the supply must be mixed with cold water, which is taken from the return pipeline. That is why such a unit is sometimes called a mixing unit. Maybe not always, but in the supply riser there is a temperature of 95 o C and even higher. Imagine your feelings if water at this temperature warms your floor. Africa is resting. This is why you need a coolant temperature control unit, which adds cool water if necessary.
Vertical collectors take up little space and can be installed even between trees, in relatively small areas. This type of floor is not based on a foundation, so it does not burden them. Based on the ground, it transfers the load from the partitions and the low level equipment. Therefore, it requires a solid foundation. The ground floor was completed in two stages. After the foundations are built, the foundation and concrete slab are produced. The second part of the work is carried out when the walls and ceilings are already installed, most often after the end of the open state.
The speed of water movement in the underfloor heating system should be in the range of 0.2-1.0 m/s. In order to ensure such speed, it is required in the scheme (without it the system is ineffective).
Then you need to decide on the type of pipe you will use. Until recently, there were only two options: or cross-linked polyethylene. Today there is a third one, which at first glance has no disadvantages: corrugated stainless steel. Flexible, reliable, inexpensive (much cheaper than MP), long service life, excellent characteristics, and even there are no crafts. Not material, but a fairy tale. The only disadvantage is greater resistance to water flow due to the ribbed surface. And then, this is not a proven fact, but an assumption. In general, please note that there is also such material. More
Humus must be removed from the place where the house will be built. Select a level below humus to match all layers of the floor. Then distribute the wiring. The load will be transferred to the foundation so that it is strong and stable. It is usually made of sand or rock. The stone grinds have sharp edges, so when clamped and compacted, it sticks well and is stable.
Each of them must be leveled and beaten well so that it does not settle in the future. At the base there is a concrete slab that must bear the weight of the partitions. They are made from wire with cross section 4-8 mm. The reinforcement is placed on the spacers to separate them from the substrate and the two layers from each other.
After you have decided on the type of pipes, you decide which way you will lay them: “snake” or “snail”. “Snake” is easier to install; “snail” does not give the zebra effect of alternating warm and cold zones. Then you need to select the diameter and find out the length of the pipes. For a water floor in an apartment, there is no particular point in carrying out a thermal engineering calculation - everyone uses a 16mm pipe. It is unlikely that as a result of the calculation you will get something different. You can estimate the length according to the norm: 4-5 meters of pipe per m2 of area. Now you can start manufacturing.
Concrete is best ordered from concrete plants, which guarantees good quality of the mixture. A concrete mixer with a pump to deliver it arrives at a certain time with a certain amount of concrete. It must be used immediately on site, so you must count the quantity required material. Work the concrete with shovels and then smooth out the stains so the surface is smooth and smooth.
The floor on the ground must be perfectly protected from the penetration of moisture or water from the soil. Waterproofing should be done on the top of the slab, which should be sealed and flexibly connected to the insulation on the benches or foundation walls. The most commonly used foundation foil or asphalt resin on adhesive or modified polymer foil. The film must have a thickness of at least 1 mm.
Scheme for laying heated floor “snake”
The connection diagram for a water heated floor to a boiler is not very complicated. A safety group is installed on the supply pipeline (if it is not in the boiler), then the pipe from the boiler is connected to the manifold assembly. The underfloor heating circuits are connected to the collector unit. On the return pipeline there is an expansion tank and a circulation pump (again, if it is not in the boiler). That's all the boiler piping for connecting a warm water floor. The simplest diagram is shown in the figure; there is also a specification table.
Waterproofing in two layers
Depending on the conditions existing on the site, it may be necessary to organize waterproofing in two layers. It is important that the waterproofing strips are laid and sealed together. If you are using two layers, the top strips of waterproofing should be laid through them at the bottom. If the level of insulation on the board falls below the foundation, you should especially place flashing in the corners. The material cannot be bent at a right angle because it may crack. In these places you need to twist a little.
The convex corners are slightly beveled and covered with a strip of resin or self-adhesive membrane. The sock usually consists of a semi-dry concrete mix that is mixed at the construction site. You can also prepare the mixture in a concrete mixer or order it from a concrete plant.
Connection diagram for a water heated floor to a boiler (click to enlarge)
Results
The source of coolant for a water heated floor in an apartment can be a central heating riser or a boiler. Both options have advantages and disadvantages. Firstly, it is not always possible to power a warm floor from central heating, secondly, you still depend on the operation of the boiler room, and thirdly, you pay decent money for it. When using a boiler, you get an autonomously operating heated floor, but you spend more money on its installation (a boiler is expensive), but you save on monthly utility bills.
It is estimated that about 8% of the heat lost from a home is lost to the ground. The substrate must be free of layers and elements that could impair adhesion and scattered parts of old screeds. Surface cracks in the substrate should be widened and vacuumed. Immediately before applying the floor covering, the substrate must be moistened with water and applied to the contact layer or primer. Make a drip in the shower tray underneath the floor to allow free flow of water onto the grate.
The height of the spout above the heating layer must be at least 35 mm. Underfloor heating can also be an electric heating mat. It is installed at the last stage of work after waterproofing. Plate insulation is designed to protect spouts and plaster from damage when exposed to water. It is applied as two coats, brush or steel float. The first layer should contain sealing accessories that form an integral part of the waterproofing layer and ensure its tightness in certain places.
Water heated floors are installed in residential premises very often now. However, this design is more suitable for private houses where the heating system is separate (autonomous). But what if you need to make a water-heated floor in your apartment? Here you need to consider all the nuances of the installation process. In addition, in most cases, installing such a structure can lead to destabilization of the thermal and hydraulic balance between neighboring apartments. Plus, a poorly thought-out system will be immediately detected by inspection authorities. We will tell you more about implementing the right system underfloor heating in the apartment.
Before installing floor heating powered by a hot battery, it is necessary to consider the difficulties that the master may encounter:
- Temperature difference of water in the system. It should be taken into account that the maximum heating parameters for a heated floor are 50 degrees, whereas in a heating system this value is 70-90 degrees. If you connect the structure directly, the equipment may fail, and the floor covering may also be damaged.
- A ban on installing heated floors in apartments with central heating. If the structure is discovered by an inspection body, the owner of the residential premises may be punished with a fairly large fine.
- If an elevator was used to connect the heating, then only copper pipes can be used to equip the heated floor, but they are quite difficult to install and expensive.
What alternative is there?
If there is no way to make a warm floor in an apartment powered by central heating, you can choose alternative paths installation of floor heating. For example, electrical design.
It is quite simple to install; you can do it yourself. It also has virtually no effect on the heating of other apartments. Although here you already need to take into account the power of the electrical network.
Electric flooring based on heating mats is the best solution for small areas Another advantage of alternative electric floor heating is that it is completely legal. Modern thermostats make the presented design very convenient to use and allow you to reduce. You can turn on such heating even in the summer, unlike water heating, which works only during the heating season (if the system is connected to a battery, but if connected to a hot water supply, then you can use water floors all year round).
Options for connecting a warm water floor in an apartment
If, nevertheless, there is a need to connect a heated floor from central heating, then you need to consider all possible such designs in order to choose the most suitable one in each individual case. There are such connection diagrams:
One of the folk craftsmen talks in great detail about one of the connection options:
It should be noted that central heating can be used on any basis. To facilitate this process, a reinforcing mesh is laid on the concrete surface to which the pipes are attached. If the base is made of wood, then special grooves should be made on the joists. This is how the structure will be fixed.
Conclusion and conclusions
It should be noted that heated floors powered by central heating can be made with your own hands, but it is advisable to follow a previously prepared scheme. You also need to take into account that installing alternative floor heating systems can be cheaper and also take much less time.
Installation of the presented structure requires knowledge and practical skills. An incorrectly configured system can lead to uneven heat distribution in several apartments at once. Some people may lose their warmth altogether. Therefore, it is better to give preference after all electrical system heating
That's all the features of connecting a water-heated floor structure. We must not forget that the use of such a system is illegal, therefore, if possible, it should be made invisible to the inspection authorities. Leave your comments, especially since the topic for discussion is very interesting. And finally, a video of connections through a separate heat exchanger - so to speak, the most ideal installation diagram:
