Alternative heating in the home?

Prophet

Prophet

Prophet

Soldato
Joined
5 Oct 2004
Posts
7,398
Location
Notts
Currently my 2 Bed Semi has a gas fire and storage heater on the landing. In three years I've only used the storage heater as a test once and the fire is used between October and March only. I'm planning on getting Central Heating fitted but wanted to look into other methods such as under floor heating. The fire heats the house up nicely but will be removed when I start my home cinema instalation.

I know electrical underfloor heating is expensive but what about water heating?

Anyone got this?

I'm thinking I can do without a full Central Heating install if I go with the lounge and kitchen being heated from the ground.
 
Underfloor heating is great particularly with tiles on cold winter days but it isn't really ideal if you want a lot of warmth. It is much better if you simply want to provide a background level of heat to take away a chill from the air; supplement it with radiators or other sources of heat if you want anything much more than that. It is also largely a simple on or off with very little in the way of modulation, at least based on the system my folks have at their house. You can however have 'zones' with varying degrees of heating to each but I only know the sketchiest details of how they work.

Also from the little I know of it the system isn't suitable for all flooring types so you'd probably need some professional advice as to the chances of getting it installed.
 
Just had the bathroom done and had electric under floor heating put in. It's made by "Warmup" and fully programmable for day/night heat settings Week/weekend heat settings. Can be used under ceramic, concrete, stone and laminate flooring but needs to be programmed for the specific type of flooring you use.

Being summer supposedly:rolleyes: still can't comment on how good at warming the room it is but its nice having a warm stone tile floor to walk on in the morning.

Oh' and doesn't cost much to run . . . . It said on the box.:D
 
doing things like closing doors and keeping curtains drawn keeps a surprising amount of heat in

when i get a house, i'm putting in under-floor watercooling heating (ie, pipes heated by my pc)
 
bledd. said:
doing things like closing doors and keeping curtains drawn keeps a surprising amount of heat in

when i get a house, i'm putting in under-floor watercooling heating (ie, pipes heated by my pc)
Click to expand...

lol
Unless your running a farm of high powered PC's then that aint gonna produce enough heat to even warm the cupboard under your stairs!!
 
Fibre_Optic said:
lol
Unless your running a farm of high powered PC's then that aint gonna produce enough heat to even warm the cupboard under your stairs!!
Click to expand...

My pc heats my bedroom, theres times in winter i have to keep the windows open because my room is too hot.
 
Repta said:
My pc heats my bedroom, theres times in winter i have to keep the windows open because my room is too hot.
Click to expand...

You must have a very small room tbh!
Also thats not just your CPU & GPU heating the room! (PSU, Monitor, TV and any other electrical equipment will also be causing your room too heat up)
 
Fibre_Optic said:
You must have a very small room tbh!
Also thats not just your CPU & GPU heating the room! (PSU, Monitor, TV and any other electrical equipment will also be causing your room too heat up)
Click to expand...

i think i should have use a :p at the end on my last post. My rooms actually quite big but its full of electrical equipment.
 
Solar panels with a modern on demand gas boiler...
Super economical.
And unless you like it 600 degrees underfloor heating is more than enough.

Oh a pc in each room. My bedroom heats up a ridiculous amount when the pc is on. Mainly from the internals of the case. It's a large double room as well and heats up by about 6degrees more than the rest of the house.
 
Repta said:
My pc heats my bedroom, theres times in winter i have to keep the windows open because my room is too hot.
Click to expand...

This is truth as the only heating device i have is my pc. No heaters connected in my room :( Tv never plugged in, monitor of course will be kicking out heat & stereo, about it though!
 
Babies produce lots of excess energy. Simply hook one up to the mains to supplement your current eletrical supply. In some cases, you can run a whole household on one. If you dont have a spare baby, you may have to look elsewhere.
 
Fibre_Optic said:
lol
Unless your running a farm of high powered PC's then that aint gonna produce enough heat to even warm the cupboard under your stairs!!
Click to expand...

i used to have the copper tubes under my bed, that was always toasty

i'm not going to use it as a method of heating the floor, more of a method to cool my pc, (with slightly warmer floor)

you'd be surprised how much heat comes from one machine
 
I haven't had to turn the central heating on in my house since I bought it and installed it.

The living room gets like a sauna in the evenings just by closing the door and having the curtains closed.
 
You still need a boiler if you want it to be underfloor heating, it will be a more expensive option but I think it's better than radiators. Instead of having the heat coming from one or 2 spots in a room, it heats totally evenly. You can have a room thermostat for individual rooms if you want and it can be set to come on in different rooms at different times to eachother.

You will struggle to do underfloor heating upstairs though when it's in an existing property, so you'd still have radiators upstairs (though still running from the same boiler if you want).
 
try the biggest plasma you can buy, a top end PC, an xbox 360, a PS3 turn them all at once, should make the living room toastie.

And will probably be cheaper than paying heating costs.
 
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