The Benefits of Under Floor Heating

Under floor heating (UFH) is becoming increasingly popular in homes throughout Europe and it is no wonder as its benefits for health, energy efficiency, visual appeal, space saving and cost effectiveness are vast.

Under floor heating is most commonly used in bathrooms but it is also a popular choice for extensions and conservatories or anywhere wall space is limited or there is a desire to maintain a high standard of visual appeal without wall mounted radiators spoiling the look.

How Under Floor Heating Works

Under floor heating has been used since Roman times as a central heating system.

Any type of gas fuelled boiler can be used to provide the heat for a UFH system. Pipes are usually run underneath the floor surface and the heat from the water passing through the pipes transfers directly into the floor.

A warm floor creates warm air convection and this in turn heats the surrounding living space. Under floor heating is an exceptionally straightforward but highly effective way of providing a comfortably warm indoor climate with an even distribution of heat.

Five Reasons to Choose an Under Floor Heating System for your Home

There are many benefits associated with Under Floor Heating and these include:

1. Comfort
Heat radiating from the floor upwards is far more evenly distributed than heat that emanates from wall mounted radiators. Heat from wall mounted radiators is confined to a small area and rises upwards. This means that the warmer air stays around head height which does not tend to create the most comfortable feeling. Additionally, compared to traditional radiator systems there are no irritating noises arising from expanding and contracting pipes.

2. Cost effectiveness and energy efficiency
Under floor heating systems can give you a 15-40% energy saving over traditional heating methods.

3. Health
Under floor heating helps to keep moisture content levels low which means that house dust mites can be reduced. This will benefit anyone with asthma or breathing difficulties or any other allergies.

4. Ease of control
With a UFH system, the temperature of each room can be controlled individually. Being able to adjust temperature settings in each room of the house is a major benefit for any family.

5. Space and Aesthetics
Under floor heating saves space and offers heightened visual appeal in a home by eliminating the need for wall mounted radiators. Additionally, wet floors dry more quickly and décor is maintained due to a lack of damp walls.

If you are re-thinking your home heating system, refurbishing a room or adding an extension or conservatory to your property then you should give serious consideration to installing an under floor heating system as opposed to a traditional wall mounted radiator central heating system; the benefits are many!

Ivor Bates is the director of Bates Heating and Plumbing Limited, a plumbing and heating company established in 2001 and covering all areas of London, Docklands and Essex. Bates Heating is CORGI registered and all engineers are fully qualified and specially selected for their experience and range of skills. A 24 hour emergency plumbing service is also offered. For more information visit http://www.batesheating.co.uk or telephone 020 8924 3558.

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Rubber Garage Flooring for Resurfacing

You have various options to perk up the appearance of your garage by altering the garage flooring. You can opt for a basic, cheap garage flooring treatment or a high end garage flooring treatment.

Rubber garage flooring or an epoxy-coating is durable. Covering the floor with garage floor tiles can lend the garage a snazzy look, and these are functional as well. If you want to convert your garage into an extra guest-room, you may go for vinyl or linoleum flooring. Garages nowadays have much greater utilities than mere car parking areas.

Rubber garage flooring adds value and expediency to a part of your property which you might have neglected so far. The advantages are as follows:

Rubber garage flooring significantly decreases the amount of dirt tracked into your home. The elevated patterns that are offered by most brands are not only decorative but help prevent debris that adhere to the tires and then to the bottom of the shoes from being carried inside the home.

Rubber garage flooring is very simple to install. It rolls out with no difficulty, and thus resurfacing your garage becomes a rapidly executable project. Pieces may be cut out and made to overlap, or ram the edges together easily for a custom fit.

Rubber garage flooring provides a comfortable padded surface for walking and standing. Thus if you want to use the garage as an activity centre, hours of toil will not tire out your legs. Noise is diminished and some level of insulation against hot and cold temperatures is also obtained.

Rubber garage flooring protects the underlying expensive concrete façade from oil spills, grease, chemicals, and other potentially damaging materials.

This type of garage flooring is not too expensive and will not create a dent into your home-improvement budget.

However, there exist a few limitations of rubber garage flooring, especially if you want to use the garage space for the conventional purpose of parking the car. This is because the rubber flooring has a low resistance to petroleum products. Hence parking your vehicle on rubber garage flooring is not desirable. Furthermore, car tires often tend to melt when they become heated from driving in scorching summertime temperatures. Then they would adhere to the rubber garage flooring and driving the car out would become a hazard. In the contrary, the tire could cool down and solidify again had it been in contact with the concrete floor.

Of course if you want to use the garage as an additional living space, then rubber garage flooring could be an ideal alternative for concrete floors.

Want to learn more about Garage Flooring?, feel free to visit us at: http://www.about-garages.info

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Tags: Rubber, Garage, Resurfacing, Flooring

Garage Floors - How Much Do I Need?

Garage floors make a nice addition to any home and they are a fantastic home improvement project. There are many types of garage flooring products available with the most popular being rolled garage flooring, sometimes called rubber garage floors. With the wide variety of textures, colors and thicknesses available, choosing the right garage floor can be a difficult task.

Whatever type you choose you will need to determine how much flooring you need to purchase. If you have a rectangular or square garage, that calculation is quite simply length x width. For example, if your garage is 24' x 20', then you simply take 24 x 20 and determine that your garage is 480 square feet. If you were going to purchase rolled garage floors then your best option would be to choose a roll that is 10 feet wide and purchase the length you need for each 10 foot increment. In our example 2 rolls of garage flooring that is 10 feet wide by 24 feet long would be perfect. But what if you garage is 24' x 22'? If that is the case the best option would be to purchase rolled garage flooring that is 7.5' wide and then buy 3 rolls at 24' long.

In each of the examples above it is important to know the width and length of your garage. Many of the garage floors available come in various patterns and are generally rolled out from the back of the garage to the front. By doing this, the seem will run along the length of the garage. To determine the width of the rolls you will need you simply take the width of your garage and divide it by the various widths of flooring available. The most common widths of rolled garage flooring are 7.5', 8', 9' and 10'. If your garage is 22' wide then the best choice would be 3 rolls of the 7.5' width flooring. That would give you the least amount of waste when you install your floor. Three rolls at 7.5' wide would cover an area 22.5' wide providing only 6 inches of waste.

Once you determine the width of the rolls you need the length is easy. Purchase each of the rolls in the total length of the garage. For example, if your garage is 24' long then you will need each of your rolls to be 24'. But what if the necessary length of garage flooring is not available? The better garage flooring retailers can special order the perfect length of flooring you need. This eliminates waste and generally saves you money. Because there are usually custom order cut charges, it is best to order a single long run of flooring instead of 3 separate rolls. In our 24' long garage, that would mean a total roll length of 72', (24'x3).

Calculating the right amount of a rubber garage floor can be a difficult task but one that is extremely important if you are planning on this impressive home improvement project. You don't want to buy too much and waste your money but you also don't want to buy too little and end up short on the job. The right calculations are important. If you are not comfortable determining how much you need, ask for help. The better retailers will be more than willing to help you order the perfect amount.

The Rubber Garage Floors mentioned in this article are available online at StoreItWell.com.

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Tags: Garage, Floors, How

Hydronic Radiant Floor Heating - How Does it Work?

So, you're sold on the idea of radiant floor heating. Of course the question becomes "What type of system do I get?" Radiant floor heating comes in three varieties: electric, hydronic (liquid), and air based systems. The hydronic system is the most popular, for reasons that will be revealed shortly.

The "how" of hydronic radiant floor heating is fairly straightforward. A boiler heats up water, which is pumped through your house. This water flows through a network of tubing that sits just underneath your floor, radiating the heat outwards, giving you a nice, consistent heat that is the trademark of the radiant floor heating systems.

This method makes for quite an efficient system. In fact, hydronic systems are the most popular radiant floor heating systems on the marker. Since liquid holds and stores heat quite efficiently, hydronic systems uses less energy than almost any other heating system. However, since you'll need a boiler, a plumbing system, and installation underneath the floor, they aren't easy to install. In fact, they are quite a pain unless you're building a new house or an addition, in which case they can be a great option.

Keep in mind that you're not going to be getting any cooling from this system. If you need cooling, you'll need to look for alternate methods, such as forced air, or evaporative coolers. These can coexists peacefully with in floor heating, so don't worry. Just something to consider.

There are two types of hydronic systems available. The traditional "wet" system embeds the tubing into a concrete slab on the floor, which makes it quite efficient, since the concrete slab will absorbs heat and continually radiate it outwards throughout the day.

A "dry" system puts the tubes underneath the floor framing. A series of reflectors and diffusers help contain and diffuse the heat evenly. These systems are great if you don't have or don't want to deal with a concrete slab, but they aren't quite as efficient. They are still a good option, though, if your situation demands it.

If you are building or renovating your house, and you want to try a new, luxurious heating system, be sure to look into radiant floor heating. Because of it many advantages, you just might find that it becomes your favorite thing about your house. Talk to a professional today to learn about this great heating system. Thanks for reading.

David Wilson is the man behind the Radiant Floor Heating Guide Visit the site to learn more about the various types of radiant floor heating, including hydronic radiant floor heating

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Tags: Work, Floor, Heating, Hydronic

Electric Radiant Floor Heating Can Keep You Warm On The Coldest Days

Are you looking for an efficient way to heat your home? Are you tired of being cold in the winter? The answer to your heating problem might lay in electric radiant floor heating. This type of heat flows through the floors of your home and gradually warms the entire room as the radiant heat slowly rises. Here are some helpful tips and information on this type of heating source.

An interesting fact about radiant heat is that it has actually been around since ancient Roman times. The Romans ran flues from slave tended, wood burning fires, under elevated marble floors. This would result in a heated floor that would heat the whole room, keeping its occupants toasty warm.

Obviously, electric radiant floor heating has evolved significantly over the centuries. These days, plastic pipes have taken the place of metal. This makes the heat much more affordable and easier to install. Unlike forced air furnaces, this type of heating system not only increases the comfort of a home, but it also reduces energy costs.

There are other advantages also. One of the biggest of them has to do with the silence of the heating system. There are no clanking radiators and no whoosh of a forced air furnace. There is nothing but silence and satisfying heat.

If you compare a forced air furnace to an electric radiant floor heating system you will immediately notice which is the better deal. The forced air furnace will shoot out warmed air into the room that immediately rises to the ceiling. The top of your head may stay warm, but your toes are still cold. That's why we often use throw blankets while watching TV or reading a book in our favorite recliner.

With the radiant floor heating there are no big fluctuations in the heat of the room. Your whole body stays warm from your toes up to the top of your head. The temperature of the room stays even. You will be more comfortable even in the coldest climates.

The system is installed by connecting a series of wires, which are ran below the sub floor of the home. The unit is designed to be used with hardwood or ceramic flooring. If you have a home that has carpeting and a lot of padding, you won't be able to use this type of heat. It will be insulated too much and it will not allow the heat to rise through the padding and carpeting. The result will be a very chilly room.

So there you have some interesting facts and great tips on electric radiant floor heating. Use these tips wisely and start saving money on your winter heating bill.

You can find out more about Electric Radiant Floor Heating as well as much more information on everything to do with radiant floor heating at http://www.RadiantFloorHeatingInfo.com.

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Tags: Electric, Floor, Radiant, Heating

Electric Radiant Floor Heating - Pros and Cons

As you may already know, radiant floor heating is a great alternative heating method that is gaining more attention in recent years. Unlike forced air heating systems, radiant floor heating systems give a nice, even, luxurious heat to a room.

There are several types of radiant floor heating, with the two main types being electric and hydronic. We'll be talking about the electric system in this article.

So, how does this electric radiant heating work? More or less, the system is an electric blanket that sits under your floor. Electric cables run underneath your floor, and generate heat from resistance, just like an electric blanket. Easy enough to understand. Let's talk about the pros and cons of this system.

One obvious issue is that electricity is quite expensive. To save electricity, it is generally more efficient to install the system over a concrete floor base. The concrete will absorb up the heat, and radiate out slowly, giving the radiant heating system its characteristic "glowing warmth". If you install the same system in something like a wood floor base, none of the heat will be absorbed, leading to an inefficient system. In fact, if you can't install the system in some sort of slab, you're better off just getting a hydronic system.

One situation where electric radiant heating does shine, though, is for additions where running the main heating system over is not practical. Since electric radiant heating requires no furnace or boiler, it is very convenient to install. Of course, since it doesn't provide cooling, you may want to run ducts in anyways, or use some other sort of cooling method. For heating in an odd addition, though, electric radiant heating is a great way to go.

You can see that electric radiant floor heating isn't a magic bullet. It can be inefficient for the amount of heat it provides, that is for sure. However, if you have the right setup, or simply have a hard to heat addition, be sure to give electric in floor heating systems a closer look.

David Wilson is the man behind the Radiant Floor Heating Guide. Visit the site to learn more about the various types of radiant floor heating, including electric radiant floor heating.

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Tags: Electric, Radiant, Floor, Heating

Shabby Chic - Creating the Look

Shabby Chic has become an increasingly popular style of home decor over the last few years. Some call it glamour styling, but whatever you call it, there is nothing more charming and romantic! Let's find out how easy it is to create the shabby chic look.

The first rule for decorating in this style is that all surfaces and soft furnishings are pale or shiny. Occasionally a little black or dark navy is added for dramatic contrast on woodwork or furniture. Furniture is normally kept fairly simple. For example, a sofa covered in pale damask is perfect for the shabby chic look.

Floors can be carpeted or wood. When using wood flooring, an off white or cream color is absolutely stunning! You can accomplish the look yourself if you already have wood floors. Simply sand the floor down, paint it with a pale colored paint that is durable and made for floors. Finish off with a couple of coats of semi-gloss polyurethane for protection. If you decide to use carpeting, a biscuit colored berber is perfect for using in the shabby chic decor.

There are a variety of ways to decorate your walls. A pale, neutral colored paint for the walls adds to the roomy and airy feeling. You can also use wallpaper, with patterns such as a fine striped or delicate floral effect. Top this with a textured border that depicts a three-dimensional effect for a striking room!

If you have large picture windows in your home, these are perfect for the shabby chic style. Use delicate sheers in pale colors, or a small stripe or floral pattern works as long as the colors stay in the white, pale pink or cream color. A very small touch of black or navy will work as well.

Accent your new look with distressed finished pieces such as wall mirrors, chandeliers and plant stands. A plant stand overflowing with delicate greenery adds romance and charm to your room. You can also find magazine racks, candleholders and shelves that are designed in the shabby chic decor style.

Shabby chic is the way to go if you're a romantic and love the charm and elegance this style affords.
You can also use this style and stay within your budget, since there are many aspects of this decor that you can easily do yourself. So get started on that new look - you will love the clean, uncluttered and airy atmosphere this style lends to your home!

Tess Tackett is the owner of All About Home Decor where you will find exquisite home and garden decor in many styles at wholesale prices! Also visit her blog, Interior Motives for more decorating tips and recipes.

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