wet underfloor heating with LED up lights...

[matt.leung]

have been asked by a client of mine as they want led up lights in there bathroom floor...

they already or will also be install wet under floor heating... i suggested that they can use electric under floor heating, and i am intreasted to see what u guy's say or think......

matt

 

[ProDave]

I would say stick with the wet UFH if you want to bury extra things in the floor.

Wet UFH has pipes spaced at typically 200mm apart, and then some form of heat spreader plate or sand/cement screed to dissipate the heat. If building in extra things like up lighters in the floor, you can fit the cabling early in the first fix at the same time as the plumber lays the pipes. Then between you you can agree how to fit the lights and pipes in together maintaining a decent separation.

The trouble with electric UFH is the heating mat covers just about the whole floor, so creating a void in which to fit the lights might not be so easy.

Whatever you do it needs careful consideration from a very early stage. Don't forget to route all the cables to some accessible point for the transformers.

 

[ian3012]

matt, i did my own wet underfloor heating... most ufh pipes are installed in a spiral pattern... its gonna be very difficult/impossible for you to keep your cable from crossing the pipes many times. the cable/conduit is gonna get trashed if you put it on top of the pipes, when the floors are screeded.

if it's going to be a 2-3" concrete floor, sat on a layer of 2" kingspan, personally i'd lay your pipes in a plastic conduit under that, and maybe hollow out a groove in the back of the kingspan so that there wasn't a massive 'hump in the carpet' if you see what i mean...have an elbow of conduit sticking out of the floor 12" at every light point.... it's gonna take a while though...

whichever way you go... i think your gonna need a lot of co-operation from the floor screeders/pipe layers.... and they might not be that helpful, cos these kind of trades are usually in/crash/out/done type of blokes. :|

 

[batty]

So is this an upstairs ie wooden floor or downstairs bathroom?

 

[matt.leung]

up stairs bathroom i believe... the client phoned me asking if it was possible...

 

[ian3012]

lol... wasted that post didn't i? ROTFWL :Blushing

 

[batty]

lol... wasted that post didn't i? ROTFWL :Blushing

It always pays to get basic information.

 

[ProDave]

I assumed it was an upstairs suspended floor.

In which case (in our house) you lay a sheet of sterling board over the joists and batten on that on top of the joists.

The UFH pipes run in between the battens and in out case it's filled with a dry sand / cement screed to disspiate the heat, and you board over the top.

With this method, you could leave voids where the lights are needed, and run all the cables under the sterling board, i.e between the floor joists, well away from heat and crossing under any number of pipes.

Of course this is only one of many ways of doing suspended wet UFH but it gives you an idea what I was thinking of.