Heating a house with concrete floors

[maclarencat]

Some advice please. We live uoside down (well not literally) Out sitting room kitchen etc is upstairs and bedrooms downstairs. The problem is downstairs is freezing. We have central heating and the required size radiators in the bedrooms but they do have concrete floors (covered in carpet) but they are always so cold. Espacially the main bedroom which is at the front of the house and gets little sun. Any sugestions of the best way to heat it?

[maclarencat]

Ooops dont know why I put this here should have been in home and garden sorry

[jackthehat]

How practical would it be to install an insulated floating floor ?

You'd need to be able to lose about 3 - 4 inches of head-height of your rooms, etc.

[dotty.]

It depends on how much work and money you have to spend I guess, you could put in under floor heating which would be a bigger job or you could put down some wooden flooring over an underlay.

[ummmm]

Couldn't you put underfloor heating in? Then tile or laminate over it...

[dotty.]

http://www.underfloor...n/floor-construction/

[ummmm]

We have underfloor heating in the kitchen...it was easy enough to fit. Don't think it's very cheap to buy....it is very cheap to run..

[maclarencat]

We had thought of underfloor heating but we think it would make the rooms too low. I will have a look at the link though. Please dont shout at me but I just posted this ion homes too

[maclarencat]

What sort of underfloor heating Ummmm?

[annie0000]

Our house has concrete floors but it is conventional. i.e. bedrooms upstairs. I've never had a problem with heating it - it is a modern timber frame construction. We have engineered wood flooring (top layer of wood on top of a laminate style base) in most rooms except for the kids playroom and study which are carpet on top of underlay and the toilet which is tiled. We have normal gas central heating. Are you sure it is the flooring that is the problem?

[ummmm]

We've got 'warm up' which we purchased from a tile shop...

http://www.warmup.co.uk/

[maclarencat]

Thanks I will check that Ummmm. I think the problem is hot air rises so in a conventional house you have the heat on at the correct level in your sitting room and the heat rises supplementing the bedrooms but with us the main heat is upstairs so the bedrooms do not get the benefit. I think that the concrete floors retain the cold.

[The Builder]

I would go with Jack's suggestion. What worries me is ......... if you have the rads turned up sufficiently, and you're still cold, it sounds like your wall insulation and windows aren't up to it.
Up to around 20 years ago, it was quite common to have uninsulated concrete floors. It costs more to heat of course, but it should still be comfortable.

[maclarencat]

I dont know what you mean Builder. We have had cavity wall insulation fitted and double glazing . Is there something else we should be doing with the floor?

[jackthehat]

I'm a little puzzled............
Concrete is not a terribly efficient insulation material in itself but if it is a solid mass rather than 'broken', it, together with insulated walls, d/g windows, and full-blast radiators oughtn't to leave a room 'cold'............

[maclarencat]

I know. We really are fed up. We have had to resort to a fan heater in the bedroonm which we switch on just before we go to bed as it is so cold getting undressed and then we switch it on in a morning to get dressed again!

[The Builder]

I think Jack's thinking the same as I am. If you have cav wall insulation plus DG windows............ even with a solid uninsulated conc floor, you should still be comfortable.
You either don't have the heating set high enough, or there's maybe a balancing problem with the system......... ie upstairs taking more heat than downstairs. Maybe there's a pump problem. That might mean upstairs heats and downstairs doesn't.

[scotman]

I was going to suggest the insulated floor if you have height available. Even without the underfloor heating it would improve things. Not an expert but I think it would be less than 4" deep.

[maclarencat]

I think it may be that we have too many radiators in our sitting room so that when it gets to a comfortable heat in here it turns the radiators off but the downstairs is still cold. If that is the case maybe we need to fit thermostatic controls to the radiators? Would just insulating the concrete floor help?

[jackthehat]

In the first instance, fit Thermostatic radiator controls to as many radiators as possible and keep your Living quarters turned down with your sleeping quarters turned up.

[maclarencat]

Yes I think we will try that Thankyou