Upstairs radiators with geothermal

FP Peking Duck

I have an old stone two story house I'm renovating. I'm going for geothermal with UFH downstairs. Whats the best option for upstairs? UFH again or will rads do?

I'm guessing that the Geothermal wouldn't be great with the rads upstairs. It would have to heat the water much more and there would be no heat store like in the UFH. Also since the heat would dissipate quicker, the Geo would be running some of the time on day time electricity. Am I right in saying this?

The advice I have gotten so far is that rads upstairs would be fine.
Most of the living space (including bedrooms) is downstairs. About half the house currently has an upstairs (a toilet, a small office type room and a large sitting room). I'm getting an upstairs in the rest of the house because I'm dropping ceilings to normal height to make the existing rooms easier to heat.

Thx.

DC1

I would think carefully before putting rads on a geothermal system.

Main concern is that you will need to get the heat pump to make much hotter water than is ideal for the UFH, maybe 50 degC for the rads versus 30 degC for the UFH.

The efficiency of these heat pumps decreases dramatically as you increase the output temperature, figures are available for each make and model, but I wouldnt be surprised if you go from x4 efficiency to x2 efficiency, ie your electricity usage would double for the same heat input into your house.

I reckon that electricity costs are for the foreseeable going to be linked to oil prices, so due to inherent inefficiency of generation plus distribution, electric energy will always cost at least twice as much as energy derived from oil.

So if the heat pump efficiency is as low as x2, then you may not be making any saving, maybe even a loss by choosing a heat pump.

My advice - put all that money into better insulation, glazing and heat recovery ventilation, and reduce your overall heating requirement, maybe you can halve it. Thats what I decided after looking into this in some detail a few months ago.

FP Peking Duck

Thanks for that.
As I thought. So its UFH upstairs as well so? Most of the upstairs floors are new so its not a big problem..(hassle wise anyway...money wise is another matter!!!).

Thanks again.

Sparky78

You could use hydronic heating panels upstairs which will work off the same temperature as underfloor.I think solo is the name of them.
I have heard they may dry the air in the room too much as it uses a fan to distribute the air.
Has anyone any experience of them?