Electric underfloor heating

fungie

I just moved into a new apartment and it has electric underfloor heating. I've heard this can be expensive so I am looking for ways to use/optimise it? Our apartment has a day and night time meter. Any help would be appreciated!

wandererz

Is the apartment properly insulated? e.g. Dry-lined?
Any idea what kind of electric underfloor heating it is?

I have electric underfloor in an apartment which is dry-lined to maintain the heat.
Heating is configured to maintain temp of 18C-20C all the time.

Averaged bill is 105euro per month. That's with immersion on about 4 times per day and lots of electronics, full size fridge, full size freezer etc.

Controlled via heatmiser thermostats which can be controlled via app on phone or tablet from anywhere at any time.

So not bad at all considering the place is toasty throughout winter rather than freezing.

listermint

wandererz wrote: »

Is the apartment properly insulated? e.g. Dry-lined?
Any idea what kind of electric underfloor heating it is?

I have electric underfloor in an apartment which is dry-lined to maintain the heat.
Heating is configured to maintain temp of 18C-20C all the time.

Averaged bill is 105euro per month. That's with immersion on about 4 times per day and lots of electronics, full size fridge, full size freezer etc.

Controlled via heatmiser thermostats which can be controlled via app on phone or tablet from anywhere at any time.

So not bad at all considering the place is toasty throughout winter rather than freezing.

That is pennies, nice work.

fungie

wandererz wrote: »

Is the apartment properly insulated? e.g. Dry-lined?
Any idea what kind of electric underfloor heating it is?

I have electric underfloor in an apartment which is dry-lined to maintain the heat.
Heating is configured to maintain temp of 18C-20C all the time.

Averaged bill is 105euro per month. That's with immersion on about 4 times per day and lots of electronics, full size fridge, full size freezer etc.

Controlled via heatmiser thermostats which can be controlled via app on phone or tablet from anywhere at any time.

So not bad at all considering the place is toasty throughout winter rather than freezing.

I have no idea what kind of electric underfloor heating it is, the controls also dont make much sense and it's hard to tell if its even on or not.

wandererz

fungie wrote: »

I have no idea what kind of electric underfloor heating it is, the controls also don't make much sense and it's hard to tell if its even on or not.

Is your heating zoned?
i.e. do you have separate thermostats for different areas or rooms in the apartment?

I found that the best option for me for a zoned system was the "Heatmiser Neo-e" Smart Thermostats.
The "-e" means that it is for electric underfloor.

How it works:
Basically the way it works is that you have:
- a Neo-e thermostat for each room or zone.
- then you have a Neo SmartHub which connects to your broadband/internet connection. All the Thermostats connect to the Hub via wireless.
- the Hub connects to Heatmiser's servers where you create an account for the phone app to login to.

For my hot water cylinder i have a NeoStat-hw (hw for hot water).

All of the underfloor zones + the hot water are controlled via the app. And no monthly charge like other systems. Ultimately it provides more control.
- If i'm in London for example and realise nobody is at home and the heating is on for that programmed time then i simply open the app and turn it off in 15 seconds.
- If i'm at home & need extra hot water then i boost the immersion timer by 30mins, again via the app and the comfort of my couch.

The app can be installed on multiple devices and allows you to control the system from anywhere and any device as long as you know the login details.

The brilliant thing is that you can see the temp of each room or zone, if the heating is on or off and what the schedules are for it to come on or off or what the minimum temp needs to be.

Cost Considerations & Cost Savings:
It does cost a few hundred to purchase the stats & hub and of course to get it wired in.
But ultimately it gives one more visibility & control. More control means better management of your expenditure in the long run and no more bill shock.
I'm with Airtricity on an averaged bill for the year and it's remained almost the same two years running, in fact slightly reduced after the first year.
And importantly no more bill shock. With the storage heating system & electric blower i used to suffer from bill shock at this time of the year, sometimes of 800+++euro. Those days are now gone.
Before i made the change i agonised over whether i was getting myself into more trouble by going with something that was relatively untested or newish here in Ireland. Both in terms of the stats i wanted to use and the underfloor heating system.
But i guess i had more money than common sense at the time and i am a bit of a risk taker. I researched the hell out of things and went ahead anyway.

Since i made the change i don't have to use the night rate any longer, since that was for the old storage heater system. The storage heaters have been ripped out and everything is electric underfloor using the Calorique film based system.
The only bit that uses the mesh type underfloor electric system is under the tiles in the kitchen.

For others who will have questions, i purchased the Calorique underfloor heating system from Hotfoot in Kilcoole, Wicklow.
It is an American system and those guys are the only ones i found in Ireland who supply it. Fabulous service from Jonathan there and i 100% recommend them. (BTW, i have no affiliation other than as a happy customer).

They did supply thermostats but i decided to go my own route with the Heatmiser Neo stats as i just couldn't grasp how the supplied stats worked. Plus they weren't wireless or app contolled. And if i can't understand it then it's going to be a crap load more difficult for others.

Even the Neo-stats have buttons and a display that i simply ignore, simply don't know or want to know how they work. I just use the app. It's nothing fancy, especially on Android, but it just works.

OP:
If you are in the Dublin area i can give you contact details of my electrician who wired it all in. I installed/layed down the underfloor heating system but he wired it into the thermostats and into the electricity supply. It was the first time for him and was a learning experience but now that he's done it for me, he's well used to it.
The only bit that gave trouble was realising that he needed to use a contactor for the hot water thermostat.

I asked so many people about things like the Nest and other systems for zoned electric heating and electric hot water control and couldn't get any proper answers so went with Heatmiser and i don't regret it as it works just as i like it.

The way i see it, you can look at changing your controls to something like this for better manageability. It will cost about 500-700 depending on how many stats you need.

See how that goes for this winter.

Following that, and if your apartment is not insulated, then look at getting that done. Perhaps during the summer. You can get an SEAI grant to help with this - I think the grant was about 900 euro or so. This will help with preventing heat loss. The overall cost to me was about 2K or less i think after the grant.
If you place your hand on an external wall and it is fairly cold to the touch then you are losing heat and hence your heating system needs to work more to compensate for this.
This is due to builders simply gluing plasterboard to concrete walls using the "dot & dab method" with no insulation in-between.
I can show you pictures of this from my own apartment which is about 10years old. Perhaps yours may be better built.

Other options:
Otherwise, if you don't want to do the above two options of thermostat replacement and/or dry-lining or perhaps even if you go with the first option and need a bit of a boost of heat then perhaps look at something like Farho electric radiators. They're not terribly expensive, you perhaps will only need one or two. e.g. for the lounge/kitchen area and for the main bedroom.

Heatmiser current pricing from their website:
Back to the smart thermostats, This is the current pricing:
- Heatmiser neoKit-e: includes a neoStat-e and neoHub: £209.90
- Heatmiser neoStat-e - Electric Floor Heating Thermostat: £76.00 (multiplied by however many you need, minus the one in the bundle above)
- Heatmiser neoStat-hw - Hot Water Programmer : £71.00

So, for a two bed apartment if you need 3x Underfloor stats + 1 Hot Water stat it will cost about:
£209.90+ £76.00 + £76.00 + £71.00 = £432.90 (approx 500euro)
Plus shipping from the UK via UPS and the electricians charge.

If you need to see it in operation then you're welcome to come over and have a look.

If there is one thing i hate it is a cold home. If it's cold it's not home, it is a cell or a cave and we may as well be living outside.
So i ensure we don't feel the effects of winter inside. Nor do we have to pay a financial penalty every month to live a 21st century life.

For the die-hards who insist on wearing jumpers indoors, let them. I walk around in my shorts if i have to...and why shouldn't one. Life is meant for living, not shivering.
Our grandparents days are over, we just need to be slightly smarter in terms of how we do things and which options we exercise. Not everything may be possible immediately. You may need to work with the system you have in the apartment before making any major changes.

But do things a little at a time, make a conscious effort to get it done, set a timeframe and multiple deadlines and things will improve over time. There's just 2.5 months to go before spring. Get some of it looked at or considered now. Action stuff over the following months and by October when winter sets in again you will be happy as Larry.

(BTW, i don't know Larry at all, but i've heard he is a happy guy).

Hope the above helps.

oldsmokey

Thats a decent post, thanks