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Pretty Mouth

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What are your thoughts on using electric underfloor heating as a primary heat source in a church?

It's a typical old church building - a couple of hundred years old, very high ceiling, masonry walls, single glazed stained glass windows, no insulation anywhere. You know the sort of thing. Cold, and difficult to heat. The wall heaters aren't very effective, as the heat just rises up away from where it's useful.

The church representative suggested UFH, the idea being that it would produce heat where it's needed most. The church is used sporadically, so it wouldn't be heated all the time, just when needed.

Just wondering what you all think of the idea? Has anyone here done the same, or heated a similar space using UFH? What about warm up times, and efficiency?
 
The IR radiator sort might be good as they offer "instant warmth" before air has to heat up, etc, so if church used only for short periods at a time more economic.

But longer use a heat pump, either for UFH or air-con working in reverse to heat (as suggested above) is going to get more therms per £ than other methods.
 
Hmm, all electric heating in that sort of building - I can't help thinking it might be just as cost effective as getting a load of fivers from the bank and burning them in a brazier 😱
We have a wet system that's been cobbled together over time - starting with the old cast pipes down both sides, and most recently with some fan coils added. It takes the boiler half an hour just to get the (guestimate) 100 gallons of water in the system up to the point where the pipe stats in the fan coils come on.
As they were installed, the fans were far too noisy, so at the start of the service they'd be switched off. At this point, the water in the pipes isn't hot enough for them to do all that much, and the cold draughts coming down off the windows made everyone cold rather quickly. We've done some experimenting, and by changing the stats for a higher temperature, and fitting resistors to give an extra-slow speed we've just about got it to the point where they can stay on and the place isn't too bad now. But it's still expensive to run (oil - no mains gas) and I'd hate to think how much it would cost to heat by electric.

UFH is definitely the way to go in terms of heating, but direct electric would probably be the last choice for running costs. Mains gas & condensing boiler would probably top the list, followed by a heat pump - both wet systems. Oil or tank gas probably still come higher on the list than direct lecky.
BTW - one advantage of wet system is that they are limited in temperature to the temperature of the water going round. If someone puts a rug or carpet down on part fo the floor then that bit of floor can't overheat. Electric is constant energy - if you insulate part of the floor with carpet or furniture, then that part will get hotter (potentially a lot hotter) unless you have self-regulating elements.
 

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