Underfloor Heating Warm Up Times

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Minimising the warm up time of your underfloor heating system allows it to operate more energy efficiently and ensures that you have a system that reacts quickly once you turn it on. There are three main measures that you can take to speed up the reaction time of your electric underfloor heating system, and these are covered below.

Installing a powerful underfloor heating system
Put simply, the more powerful the underfloor heating system, the shorter the warm up time. A 200W/sqm heating mat should always heat the floor up to the desired temperature faster than a 160W/sqm heating mat. This happens because the powerful heating mat more easily overcomes the heat loss of the room and through the floor base.

As an example, if the heat loss of a room (including through the floor base) is roughly 80W/sqm, then a 160W/sqm system is only adding 80W/sqm of heat to the room after taking into account the heat loss. A 200W/sqm system is able to add 120W/sqm of heat to the room after taking into account the heat loss, so it is adding 50% more heat each hour than a 160W/sqm ...
... mat. In this instance the 200W/sqm mat would enable the room to reach it's operating temperature significantly before the lower powered heating mat.

Using thermal insulation boards beneath the underfloor heating system
Placing thermal insulation boards directly beneath your underfloor heating ensures that downward heat loss is minimised, and allows more heat to travel up to heat the floor and your room. Heat Mat offer a variety of thermal insulation boards from 6 to 70mm thick, with 10mm and 20mm offering a great trade off between build height, insulation value and cost.
Using a 10mm thermal tilebacker board on top of an un-insulated concrete base could reduce the warm up time of your underfloor heating system by more than two thirds, saving you energy and money.

One of the issues with water underfloor heating systems is that they are notoriously slow to react once they are turned on. One of the reasons for this issue is that the heating pipes are often placed more than 30mm beneath the floor surface, and sometimes as much as 90mm down beneath a screed. The heat from these systems needs to work its way through the 90mm of screed and tile above it before you feel any benefit in your room, and of course, it takes time for this to happen.

By using a Heat Mat system directly beneath your tiled floor, you will often find that your heating mat very close to the surface of your floor, so is perhaps 10mm below the floor surface. As the heat only has to rise through 10mm of tile before you feel the benefit the warm up time of the system is significantly improved over deep screed systems.

Put simply, you can minimise the warm up time of your underfloor heating system, and reduce its overall energy consumption, by doing the following:

Install the most powerful system that your floor covering will safely allow.

Place as much insulation directly below your underfloor heating as possible.

Ensure your heating system is as close to the floor surface as it can be.