Underfloor heating?

[Tom.]

Excuse my ignorance here I have a 2 storey terraced house, circa 1910. I have a 2 feet tall crawlspace under almost all the house. The floors are all floorboards, some tongue and groove, some just planks with a few mm gap.

Is it possible to install a water-based underfloor heating system, I was thinking something like a single pipe per room (replacing the rad pipes), that followed the gap between each pair of joists, going up and down the length of the room? The pipe would turn 180 degrees at each wall to run down the next pair of joists (it would look a bit like an oven grille pattern). I was then thinking of packing the pipe up against the floorboards with insulating material, perhaps rockwool, or something more solid?

Its dead easy to get down there and run the pipe, theres loads of room.

Would this work? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick? Its just that my house has quite tall ceilings, and its impractical to close the doors downstairs to keep the heat in, also the staircase is open. Has anybody else tried this?

 

[boogsy]

hmmm, that system would seem very inefficient, my understanding off underfloow heating, is that pipes are laid OVER existing floor, then essetially 'tiled in' with special floor 'grout'.

heat does rise, but i dont think it would pass your floorboards, carpet etc, maybe 10% of the heat would go through, thats a LOT of waste........and then theres the creaking noised from the pipes as they expand !!!!!

leave well alone !!!

 

[Jasonb]

It can be done, basically you can get a reflective metal plate that has a groove for the pipe that is fixed to the underside of the floor, you then fix rigid insulation under that. Take eack loop back to a manifold that can be balances and have its own thermostat.

Have a lok here http://www.nu-heat.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.constructions

Boogsy, your talking about electric underfloor.

Jason