How would you heat a 2600sqft single story

seclachi

Im going about building a house, single storey 2600sqft split level. I`m not far off construction at this point. The plans have made provision for an oil boiler in the garage.

Im trying to decide a few things, the first is, should I go with underfloor heating or just radiators, its not timber frame so I can pretty much adapt the floor to suit it, but is it worth the cost, and will it cause hassle in future decades.

The next question is, what is the best cost to performance heating system, I plan on insulating the house as well as practically possible. I think oil maybe the best, but I`m not sure. I was thinking of adding solar panels for heating water as well, I guess these would be on a seperate system just for providing hot water etc. Is it worth complementing the oil boiler with an air heat pump system ?

bertie1

I built a similar size house in 2006 ( 3000sq ft bungalow) , underfloor heating, the comfort is great from it but it works differently to rads. You need to have it on with thermostats in every room. It is not like rads that you just turn on when you feel cold. In the middle of winter it is on approx 6 hours a day spread out over the 24 hours, cut back as the weather turns milder. No rads means positioning of furniture is not an issue.
Floors are warm to the bare foot..
We put in a condensing oilboiler ( out in the country gas not an option). Having spent 2 winters in the house both years we used approx 2600 liters of oil per year. Solar panels are installed for hot water, they are great in the summer, ( no immersion)
I did put heated towel rails on a seperate circuit in the ensuites/ bathrooms because I like warm towels after a shower and if we have visitors in the summer there is an option to turn them on seperately if we wish.
I would do the very same again if I were starting over. Very happy with the heating.

GoneShootin

I'm at plastering stage with my 2600 dormer. My heating system is:

1) Insulate insulate insulate (don't forget to ventilate either!)
2) Low u-value products/material where possible/feasible
3) Maximised solar gain by placing more windows in areas of most sun where possible
4) Condensing oil in garage
5) Solar
6) Back boiler stove
7) Radiators + TRV's + Zoned

Ask me again how its performing Winter 2010

whitelightrider

bertie1 wrote: »

I built a similar size house in 2006 ( 3000sq ft bungalow) , underfloor heating, the comfort is great from it but it works differently to rads. You need to have it on with thermostats in every room. It is not like rads that you just turn on when you feel cold. In the middle of winter it is on approx 6 hours a day spread out over the 24 hours, cut back as the weather turns milder. No rads means positioning of furniture is not an issue.
Floors are warm to the bare foot..
We put in a condensing oilboiler ( out in the country gas not an option). Having spent 2 winters in the house both years we used approx 2600 liters of oil per year. Solar panels are installed for hot water, they are great in the summer, ( no immersion)
I did put heated towel rails on a seperate circuit in the ensuites/ bathrooms because I like warm towels after a shower and if we have visitors in the summer there is an option to turn them on seperately if we wish.
I would do the very same again if I were starting over. Very happy with the heating.

Hi Bertie,

We have similar setup and we are still messing around with the UFH to get it right. When you say you have it on for about 6 hours over 24, what times would you set it for?

sinnerboy

OP - you need a BER assessment now to
1. answer your queries
2. be sure you meet building regs

When you do this - please take part here

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055500071

cosatron

lived in a house with underfloor heating, a complete nightmare, it took at least 4 hours to get the house warm and burned gas to beat the band.(in all honesty, i think the plumber did a bad job, and the landlord has solid timber everywhere) Im not a fan of it as it doesn't suit our mixed climate. People talk about zoning and thermostats, but just before you go to work, are you going to go fiddling with the controls for heating so that the house is nice and warm when you get home and knowing our weather, the day could turn out to be a scorcher and the house will be like a sauna. For a bungalow house thats 2600ft, it will be pretty spread out, i would go with zoned rads, condensing oil boiler, HRV unit, and a lorry load of insulation and good quality windows with a low u-value.

I have UFH and think it's great as Bertie1 has already said the comfort is different to that of radiators.

UFH works best in a well insulated house with a lot of thermal mass, I have tiles on all the floors in the house the slab is 150mm thick the pipes are 30mm down from the top, I have thermostats in all the rooms. The best way to control the system is to have the heat come on a couple of hours before you need it and never to allow the temperature to drop too much as it is not a rapidly responding method of heating.

I have mine set to come on for three hours in the morning 4 - 7 AM and five in the evening 4 - 9 PM, set and forget!

The temperature setting of the water in the pipes is very important, I have it at approx 35C via a thermostatic mixing valve. Have it too high and the house temperature will overshoot the thermostat set temperature and overheat a couple of hours later.

RKQ

I have UFH and I think it's great as Bertie1 & Dolanbaker have already said the comfort is different to that of radiators.
I've no regrets.:)

cosatron

Bertie1, Dolanbaker and RKQ, sorry for my ignorance but please explain how the comfort is different with ufh. Bertie 1, you said you have used 2600 litres of oil a year, is that not allot, a friend of mine, put in the same system i descibed below and uses max. 1200 litres of oil a year.

Put simply, the heat is indirect, as in the room and everything in it is at a similar temperature, the floor being the warmest.

With almost all other forms of heating, there is a hot spot in the room and the remainder of the room is much cooler that the heat source. Many people don't consider the room "warm" unless they can feel a blast of warm air form the stove or whatever.

We often have visitors who keep their coats on as they don't see a roaring fire in the room and assume it must be cold despite the fact that I'm sitting there with just a tshirt.

RKQ

I'd agree with dolanbaker.
I liken it to a warm summers day - the air is warm but not burning heat like you feel the closer you sit to an open fire. The whole room is the same comfortable temperature.

Theres no direction of heat, by this I mean like from an open fire or rad. The air is not dry like you get from rads. I notice rads in a room more that I used to - I find rads & their heat artifical, stuffy and uncomfortable.

There no draughts in the room, like with an open fire or rad. Its hard to explain but it will be obvious to you if you visit a friend with UFH.

Underfloor feels more natural IMO. Socking feet is great and the kids love playing on the floor.

No ash, no dust, no cleaning out fires. Coming home to a snug warm house in freezing winter - priceless!:)

mark2003

You should definitely go with under floor heating,with a condenser boiler.If oil gets very expensive at least you have an option later in time to go for geothermal heating(which will come down in price year after year).If you go for radiators,you are stuck with oil for life.Always try and future proof a new build,might have a high initial cost but will pay back in the future.

CJhaughey

mark2003 wrote: »

You should definitely go with under floor heating,with a condenser boiler.If oil gets very expensive at least you have an option later in time to go for geothermal heating(which will come down in price year after year).

How do you work out that the cost of GSHP is coming down? Electricity is getting more expensive as fuels rise.
If you really really want to future proof the house build a passive house no need for any heating system at all!

sinnerboy

mark2003 wrote: »

go for geothermal heating(which will come down in price year after year).

Clalify please . This is your opinion ? Or you know something we don't ?

bertie1

cosatron wrote: »

Bertie1, Dolanbaker and RKQ, sorry for my ignorance but please explain how the comfort is different with ufh. Bertie 1, you said you have used 2600 litres of oil a year, is that not allot, a friend of mine, put in the same system i descibed below and uses max. 1200 litres of oil a year.

A friend of mine had a 1200 sq ft house built 15 years ago & uses that much oil just to heat it. The house we have is 3000sq ft and I think the oil consumption is very good. I have the heating on in really cold weather for 2 hours early morning 5- 7 and for 4 hours from about 15.00 in the evening , . All rooms are on thermostats set at 18C and they cut out when it gets to that.
In the last house I had rads & if we were sitting down at night it is always your feet get cold not so here as the floor will be hotter than your 18 C so there is all over comfort. The concrete floor stores the heat ( there is about 6" of concrete floor over the pipes) and gradually releases it so if you get up at night at any stage the floor is warm. We have tiles & a resin floor in all the living area with floating timeber floors in the bedrooms.
You do not turn it on & off like some people do with rads. You turn it on & let the thermostats & clocks call in & out the zones as they require heat.
We put in plenty of insulation & there are no draughts . It is great.

seclachi

Thanks for all the replys, Im still sitting on the fence about UFH, probably because at the moment I`m a young professional without a family and I may travel a bit. Heating the entire floor of the house in cycles just doesnt seem to make sense to me as it requires such a large usage of energy to bring it to a comfortable level, at which point you then either go to work or bed and it all drains back out. I`m sure its more economical if your constantly heating it throughout the day.

That being said I hate cold tiles, so Im considering putting in a hybrid, with underfloor heating in the bathrooms and maybe the tiled area of the kitchen.

Im sceptical about Geothermal heating, ultimately your putting yourself at the mercy of the electricity market instead of the oil market. I dont know if there will be any great improvement in compressors (outside of fancy new tech) as they have been in use in plenty of other areas for a long time (I wonder is the inductive load from these starting to become a problem for the esb).

You maybe interested in my brother who has built a farm house with a geothermal system. He has hooked it into the exhaust water from a heat exchanger in his milking machine, which probably helps drive up the efficiency, but at the cost of alot of complexity and additional water pumping.

The BER.. I thought that was certification for after the house was built, or do they do some kind of pre build advising too ?

Im still a bit lost at the moment really, the only thing I`m sure of is to insulate up to the nines (by the way, does anybody know of a good source of information on this ?)