Contents
Today we will talk about how to install an electric underfloor heating in a house.
Important features of the work
In one of the articles, the types of underfloor heating in the house were considered, in particular, water and electric.
Their advantages and disadvantages were also indicated, but it did not mention another advantage of electric underfloor heating over water – the ability to install them yourself.
To make water-heated floors in a house, you need a large amount of preparatory work, you also need to be able to properly wire and secure pipes, connect them to centralized heating, and then there will be a lot of finishing work.
Underfloor heating, in which the source of heat is electricity, is much easier to make, and there is much less preparatory work.
But since there are three types of electric underfloor heating – cable, thermomats and infrared, their installation differs from each other.
But in general, it is quite possible to lay each type of electric underfloor heating on your own.
Conditions for laying underfloor heating
Regardless of what type of electric floors was chosen, there are certain conditions that must be observed so that in the future such equipment at home will only please:
- The area covered by the heating system must be at least 70% of the floor area. In this case, her work will be effective;
- Before laying the system, you should immediately determine the location of furniture and large household appliances in order to exclude the possibility of damage to the system wires;
- Calculate the power of electricity that the system will consume and find out if the wiring at home can withstand such a load.
If these conditions are met, then you can proceed to the next stage of work.
First you need to decide which type of underfloor heating will be the most optimal.
So, cable underfloor heating has the most complex laying technology, requires careful preparatory work, an additional screed will definitely be required. But this type is the most economical in terms of energy consumption.
Thermomats are the easiest to install, the preparatory work for their installation is minimal, but they also consume the most energy.
The infrared type of warm floors has an average complexity in terms of preparatory work, their laying is not particularly difficult. Their electricity consumption is higher than cable, but less than thermomats.
Features of the calculation of the necessary materials
After choosing the type of underfloor heating, you should calculate the required materials.
For example, if a cable system is selected, you should decide on the total length of the cable to be laid.
To do this, several factors must be taken into account:
- The cable should not be located under the furniture, therefore, when determining the parameters of the room, the area allocated for it should not be taken into account;
- The cable should not come close to the walls. The minimum distance from the cable to the walls should be 5 cm;
- The most common laying method is the “snake”. With this laying, the cable stretches across the entire width or length of the room, not reaching the wall, wrapped and laid to the opposite wall, where it wraps again. In this way, the entire floor area allocated for the system is covered. In this case, the distance between parallel parts of the cable must be at least 8 cm.
The calculation of the number of thermomats or infrared film is much simpler, for example, the thermomat section has a width of 50 cm, and the length can reach 30 m. Therefore, it will not be very difficult to calculate the amount of required materials.
The infrared film has the same width, but its length cannot exceed 8 m.
You can use a formula.
Preparatory work
Before laying all three types of electric floors, preparatory work is carried out, and they are the same.
The first thing that is done is the location of the thermostat is chosen.
It can be placed on any of the walls. The only thing is that its location should have good access to control the system and be as close as possible to the electric meter.
In this case, it is not recommended to install the regulator below 30 cm from the floor surface.
After determining the location of the regulator with a puncher with a special nozzle, a seat is made in the wall.
You will also need to make strobes for laying the mounting ends of the system with which it will be connected to the regulator.
At the same time, it is better to lay these ends not in one strobe, but to do two of them at a short distance from each other.
One of the strobes will be used for laying the temperature sensor.
After these works, the floor surface is prepared, on which the system will be laid.
If there is a floor covering, then it is better to dismantle it, and put the system itself on the main floor screed.
In this case, the screed must be prepared. All surface irregularities must be removed.
Then the floor must be cleaned of debris and treated with a primer that provides better adhesion of the surface to other materials.
Next, proceed directly to the installation of the system on the floor.
Here at this stage, the procedure for performing work differs depending on the type of underfloor heating chosen.
Laying cable underfloor heating
First, let’s look at how the cable system is mounted, which, by the way, can also be used to heat the roof and gutters in the house.
After surface treatment with a primer, preliminary marking is carried out, taking into account all the indents and distances between the cables and places where it will not be located.
It is also necessary to correctly determine the laying so that the mounting ends of the cable come out to the place where the regulator is installed.
Then, for better heat transfer, the entire surface of the floor is covered with a heat-insulating layer. In this case, it is important to choose the right thickness.
If another living heated room is located under the room, then a thermal layer 3-4 mm thick will suffice.
If the room is not heated from below, a thicker thermal insulation layer is needed.
After laying the thermal insulation layer, mounting aluminum cable tapes are fixed on its surface.
These tapes are installed on the surface with a distance of 1 meter between them. In this case, they must be located perpendicular to the main direction of the cable.
It is better to fasten the tapes with dowels.
Having finished with the installation of mounting tapes, proceed to laying the cable itself.
First of all, the mounting end of the cable is pulled to the location of the regulator and secured with mounting tape clamps.
After that, the rest of the cable is laid with fixing it on the tape and observing the distance between the cable segments, as well as the walls.
Next, the thermostat is installed in the seat, the mounting ends of the cable are connected to it, and it is connected to the electrical network of the house.
Then proceed to laying the temperature sensor.
To prevent possible damage, it is better to place it in a corrugated plastic tube, while closing it with a stopper from the position of the sensor.
The sensor, protected by corrugation, is laid on the floor, strictly in the center between two cable segments.
After that, the strobes made with the cables embedded in them are sealed with alabaster.
At this stage, you can conduct a trial run of the system.
By setting the minimum temperature on the thermostat, and then with its gradual increase, check the performance.
If everything is fine, you can proceed to the final work.
To protect the cable from possible damage, an additional cement-sand screed is applied to the surface of the main screed, with the system already laid.
But its thickness should not be large – 3-4 cm. Such a screed will completely cover the cable, protecting it from damage.
After that, a floor covering is applied to the dried screed.
Warm cable floor in section.
As they do in a wooden house.
Installation of thermomats
The system of warm floors, consisting of thermomats, is much easier to lay.
After the preparatory work, you can proceed directly to laying, since the thermal insulation layer is not used with this type of underfloor heating, thermomats are placed directly on the primed screed.
For ease of placement, the mesh on which the cable is fixed can be cut, the main thing is not to touch the cable itself.
This allows you to lay thermomats in the most convenient way.
Further, to the installed regulator, the mounting ends of the thermomats are carried out, and the temperature sensor is also laid.
Since the sensor placed in the corrugated tube will be thicker than the warm floor layer, then for its installation it will be necessary to make another strobe – in the floor.
The sensor should be placed at an equal distance between the cables of two adjacent segments.
This type of underfloor heating is great for tiled flooring. By gluing the tile with an adhesive to the floor, the thermomat is also fixed with this glue.
It turns out that the thermomat will be placed in the thickness of the adhesive, which will protect the cables from possible damage.
Ways to install a warm floor under a different coating.
Laying infrared film
Finally, consider how the infrared type of floor heating is installed.
The installation operation is not particularly difficult, but preparatory work must be done before installation.
It will be necessary to lay a thermal insulation layer on the floor surface. At the same time, the layers of thermal insulation are fixed with mounting tape between themselves.
Further, an infrared film is spread on the surface of the thermal insulation.
If necessary, pieces are cut off, this should be done only in the places indicated on the film.
In this case, a distance of 4-5 cm should be observed between the two strips of the film.
Also, the film does not need to be laid in the furniture locations, it should not come close to the walls and other heating elements of the house.
See also:
After laying, the wiring is connected to each piece of the laid film.
This is done using special terminals that come with the film.
It is important to consider that the connection of each piece of film to the overall system must be carried out in parallel.
After connecting all the wires into a common system, the terminals are insulated with bituminous insulating tape.
The temperature sensor is glued with adhesive tape to the back of the film.
So that it does not create irregularities in the surface, it is allowed to cut out a place in the heat-insulating layer for its location, as well as cutting channels for laying wires.
After that, the thermostat is installed, the outputs from the infrared film are connected to it and the system is tested.
Next, laying the flooring is already being done. If a laminate will act as a coating, then the entire surface of the floor must be covered with a waterproofing film, and then the laminate should be laid.
If carpet or linoleum will be used as a coating, then to protect the infrared film on the floor surface, it is better to lay plywood or fiberboard.
But at the same time, it is important to take into account that the fastening of plywood or fiberboard sheets to the floor should be done only between the strips of the film, without touching it.
Сonclusion
We talked about the main ways to install warm electric floors.
But you need to understand that in a particular case there are some nuances that you need to know, for example, installing underfloor heating in a wooden house.
Such work should be carried out on your own only if you are confident in your abilities and understand what you are doing. Electricity is no joke.