Underfloor Heating System

Electrical Underfloor Heating has had a mixed reception with the public and conservatory pundits alike. The problem has been that most conservatory vendors – generally in their rush to secure a customer’s order and sometimes with a ‘free promotional underfloor heating system”- have often specified the lowest cost option and installed as cheaply as possible. At best these systems have worked to provide some semblance of background heating only and at worst have failed totally in their operation. This of course offers no great comfort for the customer who now has the system buried within the floor and a guarantee period that offers limited or no warranty backup! Underfloor heating is as old as the Romans and our heating system sets new standards to take the Roman genius into the modern era.
We’ve heard of so many discontented conservatory owners and no wonder electric underfloor heating is viewed suspiciously. Trouble is a lot of conservatory vendors (and the builders they contract for that matter) are certainly not expert in flooring, heating or ventilation matters and shy away from offering anything at all, go for very poor products through their own ignorance or attempt to keep things “cheap” or farm the job out to others but against a price constraint. It shouldn’t have to or need be this way.
At Ellwood, we have naturally ensured the best and our preferred systems are designed to provide the correct amount of heating and we will also state that in normal circumstances*, no additional heating will be required.

Our system is therefore a single source heating solution product meaning that you wont need another heating system to back it up*! Beware of under performing systems that are probably designed for background heating only. *The manufacturer expects this system to maintain the required conservatory temperature for at least 95% of the time ¡n the usual British winter climate. This note is based on experience taking the “average’ of conservatories built in the marketplace. In very cold external conditions on certain days it may there fore be necessary to temporarily supplement with say an electric heater ¡n the conservatory’. However, given the high insulation properties of our conservatories anyway – i.e. our conservatories are well above the market’s general or average” construction – i.e. doubt if you will ever have to do this. Have a look at the conservatory highlighted in our section ‘All Year Round Conservatory’ That one is built in Gloucester and has electrical underfloor heating beneath a Travertine stone flooring. In the winter of 2008/2009 temperatures on some days plummeted outside to minus 10°C but the temperature ¡n the conservatory maintained a very comfortable, set 21°C. In fact the conservatory was the preferred room to sit ¡n as the main house, with traditional radiators via a gas fired central heating system, struggled at times to provide comfortable room temperatures.

The control unit we install provides the ultimate in temperature/timer programme operation too. The usual customer operating setting is about 21°C to 23°C (higher or lower as you wish of course). What we install is a digital combined thermostat and timer system. This gives you a 7 day programme setting operation so that, as an example, you can set the timer to switch on to 210 at say 6am each morning, Mon to Fr1, and at 9am drop down to say 100 and then back to 21° at 5pm. The system should also normally be at full temperature from start in around 30-60mins. You can then perhaps programme the weekend days differently if you wish. Manual override is also assured of course and the installation provides for a floor temperature sensor and an air/ambient temperature sensor.

If there’s a power cut then all your settings in the control units memory will be preserved for several
hours as there’s an on board battery backup.

Efficiency of this kind of system is 100% whereas central heating (e.g. radiators) can be as little as 70% efficient as a heating source. Additionally this system frees up wall space from radiators. The underfloor heating is a healthy alternative to traditional systems as it provides no draughts given the heat comes off the whole floor area.

In a nutshell, our quality approach is for total flexibility, programmability and customer control with a system that’s properly designed for the job – whether installed under engineered timber or laminate flooring, porcelain tiles or other stone finish options. On the assumption that connection to your house supply is relatively straightforward (near to the conservatory) then the actual connection to your house supply is included (we install an RCD/spur to allow the floor system to connect correctly and safely. However the RCD is not necessary if your mains supply already has one installed – usual in new builds or refurbished properties). However if the connection is complicated then our electrician will advise and provide an appropriate quotation for the work.

LOST OR MISLAID INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE MODEL 761 or 762 THERMOSTAT?

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