Underfloor heating - a bonus or a pain?

[KGeeson]

Has anyone used underfloor heating in any of their properties? I just wondered whether it's seen as a benefit (space-wise and nice for tenants),or is it a huge bug bear if something goes wrong with it (both practically and financially)?

 

[nmb]

Underfloor heating can be a very interesting and useful addition to any home - often seen as environmentally friendly by making use of hot water pipes. The fact that the heat rises constantly circulating around the whole room is often preferred to radiators where the impact of the heat can be very isolated. However, underfloor heating can be very expensive to fit retrospectively and costly to repair if damaged.

 

[bracknelson]

Underfloor heating can be a very interesting and useful addition to any home - often seen as environmentally friendly by making use of hot water pipes. The fact that the heat rises constantly circulating around the whole room is often preferred to radiators where the impact of the heat can be very isolated. However, underfloor heating can be very expensive to fit retrospectively and costly to repair if damaged.

Yes Nmb, I quite agree with whatever you said about hot water pipes. The best thing is it runs parallel to the cold water service lines. They never intersect or collide. If you look at obvious service pipes, you'll notice 2 pairs of pipes running parallel to each other throughout the house. When water runs through a copper pipe, dissolved oxygen reacts with the copper to form a protecting oxide coating. But the running hot water is constantly trying to dissolve or erode the protecting oxide film, and the higher the velocity, the higher the abrasive effect.