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Electric underfloor heating


Angie
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Can anyone tell me whether electric underfloor heating mats (currently available in the UK) are also available in France. I have searched the internet without success and indeed someone living in France mentioned to me that because of French regulations they may not be legal there.  We will need to have this installed by an electrician (ie. not DIY!) so any advice would be much appreciated.
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I did find them last year in France. I think it was on the site for a company called Thermor, which my electrician was using. Don't hold me to that though as I might have been exploring more widely. Didn't use it in the end as we went with wet system.

Good luck

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We live in a legally constructed house in France with underfloor electric heating so I guess it's legal! You don't actually say why you're asking the question so it's difficult to add any more information without risking boring you to death.

Benjamin

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Thanks for your reassuring replies (mrbeeman also by pm.).  The reason we wanted to know is the builder who is constructing our house wants to instal electric panel heating which, I gather, is very expensive to run.  We will not be living in the house so do not want an oil or gas boiler running while we are away (just in case it goes wrong).  Electric underfloor heating seemed the ideal option as a method of keeping the house "ticking over" and I also understand that this method of electric heating is quite economical and effective. We therefore contacted a couple of local underfloor heating "experts" and another local builder but none of them have come back to us - in fact (as mentioned in my post) one of them did say that they suspected that "electric" underfloor heating (using mats) was illegal.  I now know it is not, so will be pursuing the companies I originally contacted and also Thermor mentioned by John.  Would also appreciate hearing whether those who have installed it are happy with the system and approximate costs involved.  Thanks again everyone.  Bevvy
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**We therefore contacted a couple of local underfloor heating "experts" and another local builder but none of them have come back to us - in fact (as mentioned in my post) one of them did say that they suspected that "electric" underfloor heating (using mats) was illegal.**

Most (if not all) of the underfloor heating installations I know of around us are 'wet' systems. The electric underfloor system seems to be relatively less well-known - perhaps it is newer?

Sue (who likes the idea of underfloor heating - when we have a house of our own) 

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Bevvy

I can't help with installation costs as ours was already installed when we bought the house last year but we think it's a terrific form of central heating. There's something really luxurious about walking round in bare feet in the middle of January. Of all the heating systems we have had in various houses we think this is the best.

 There is one drawback and that is that the heat is not "instant". Dependent on how cold the house is it can take anything up to 24 hours to warm the whole place through. If you also invest in a reasonably sophisticated timer system then you can set this to come on up to 99 days in advance so if it's a holiday home or if you go away for a winter holiday you will return to a warm home. I think I've also seen on another thread on here that you can now get timer systems that you can activate remotely by telephone.

Before we bought this house we visited EDF for an estimate of what our bills were likley to be. Taking into account all of the appliances we have and the sort of temperatures we wanted to maintain they estimated our annual costs as being between € 1.300 and € 1.500 per annum. We actually come in under their figures. We have no other forms of heating.

PM me if I can be of any further help.

Benjamin

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Even with today's oil prices I would be astonished if electric underfloor heating would be cheaper to run than a wet system in France.  This based on a like for like operation.  There is no reason why a gas or oil boiler cannot be programmed to operate a wet system to exactly the same operating conditions as electric.  Ours even has the possibility of being hooked into a telephone line so you could ring up and increase the temperatures a couple of days before you arrive.

As has been said above, underfloor heating (by whatever means) takes a while to come up to temperatures.

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Hello,

 With an electrician friend, I installed 3 mats in the 3 rooms of my 40m2 renovation which is my living quarters.

The total power including an electric towel rail is 3.5kv.

I insulated the walls and put 30cm of rockwool in the roof space.

I ran it constantly but even during the bitter winter the heating was never on more than half.

My electric bill is 44euros per month.

Prehaps some-one with more 'nows' than I could work out the cost of running this system 24/7 as our American cousins say...

 I would be interested to know.

Also I have just the standard abonnment to E.D.F.

 Regards

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I don’t know anything about underfloor heating and the like. However, as far as running costs go I would assume that 1Kw of electricity put under the floor (i.e. into the house) must be pretty much the same as 1Kw of electricity put e.g. into the air by a fan heater (or storage heater, etc.). Similarly, 1Kw of electricity generated heat is probably much the same as e.g. 1Kw of e.g. solar heat (or mains gas heat, etc.).

People seem to say the electricity is pretty well the highest cost per Kw there is (with bottled gas a close 2nd at the moment).

I does occur to me that if you install electric underfloor heating you are completely limiting and sort of flexibility as to which type of energy you use for heating in the future – you must use electricity. As prices fluctuate in the longer tern you will have no option to switch, etc.

Just my take on it.

Ian

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I'm not sure of the comparative costs of different energy forms ( presumably there's a web site ) but the CEO of EDF was on a UK television program about a week ago and he said that France has the cheapest electricity in Europe ( or was it the EU? ). Add to that the fact that many oil and gas commentators are already talking of the $ 100 barrel and with the sheer convenience of electricity, then maybe it's as attractive now as it's ever been.

Benjamin

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Hello,

 I should like to add that the cost of the materials was less than 1500euros including all the controleurs.

Ease of installation... a blind baby could have laid the mat out.

Yes I am limited to electric but for the size of the place it was a good option and the least expensive to install.

For my main house I would have chosen to install the geothermal system and as I am a working tax payer here I would benefit from a 50% reduction in cost.

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To be sure  a kw of heat cannot be more than a kw. BUT we tend to keep on applying heat until we are comfortable at our level even if the ceiling is toasting.

Fan / Convection is a good way of getting the air warm (space heating) but is not a lot of cop for sitting down comfort and the feeling of warmth (as opposed to hot skin)

Underfloor (whether wet or dry) is good for comfort even with low heat input, though needs time to build up.

Radiants are good for comfort and have an immediate effect within a limited range.

Ideally you need a mix. e.g. the conventional CH radiators provide both radiant and convection.

I would be investigating heat pump systems if I had a big 'project'.

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  • 4 weeks later...
I have several friends who have gone down the route of Underfloor heating, both Electric and the wet systems. I thought it would be prohibitively expensive and a luxury, but having walked on their floors in December and january, and noticed the thermometer on the wall showing quite low "Air"temperature I was amazed.

If you think about it.. most of the time the only part of your body touching any part of your room is your feet!! Heat rises and unlike a radiator which requires pipes that leak heat out through the walls and inside walls and floor spaces (however well they are lagged), a subfloor heating system is quite efficient. It needs low maintenance and frees up wall space for furniture.

I think it's more about how efficiently the heat is distributed that counts. 1kw through the floor would give a better warmth than 1kw blown out of a fan heater..
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We are in the early stages of having a house built in France.

The first option offered by the builder was electric underfloor.

Reading around on the net I have seen several heat gradient graphs

showing distance from the floor against temperature.

Above floor heating generally using high temperature sources heats the top half of the room

more than the bottom. Underfloor conversely heats most near the floor.

Making it slightly more efficient 20-30% (claimed) and highly suitable for high ceiling rooms.

I would be interested to hear from others on actual running costs. Also experiences with Tempo the EDF charging scheme.

Strebor

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