Kitchen or Utility Room

For many people, the kitchen is the heart of their home, with a kitchen/diner being used for eating meals, entertaining and children’s activities as well as for cooking. With the difficulty of placing radiators in the past, many kitchens had no heating at all, relying on the heat produced from cooking to keep them warm but with modern energy efficient ovens this is now rarely enough. Electric underfloor heating provides an efficient heat source whatever your chosen floor covering and is perfect in these types of room.
 
 
What are the main benefits of electric underfloor heating in your kitchen or utility room.

  • Some of us spend a lot of time in out kitchen/diners and underfloor heating creates a warm and cosy environment for cooking, eating meals and entertaining.
  • In smaller kitchens, wall space can be at a real premium and using underfloor heating means you don’t have to find space for an unsightly radiator or panel heater and have more space for your kitchen storage.
  • Kitchens and utility rooms often have cold to touch floors such as tile, stone or laminate flooring. An underfloor heating system transforms these cold floors with lovely warmth; no more cold feet when you go down for breakfast in the morning having forgotten your slippers.
  • Unless you have chosen an in-screed heating system your electric underfloor heating is designed to be very fast-reacting when turned on or off. This is perfect for kitchens, which can rapidly heat up once you start to cook so the heating system needs to turn off quickly to compensate.
  • The gentle heat the underfloor heating provides minimises air movement and thus prevents draughts and helps to create a low dust and allergen environment. By distributing the warmth around the room, underfloor heating avoids the excessive radiant heat that radiators can create.
  • With their nearly 100% efficiency and fast heating up time, each of our electric underfloor heating ranges operates at a lower temperature than a conventional heating system, which helps reduce energy usage and therefore the costs of heating your rooms. Most Heat Mat systems are supplied with a Lifetime Warranty and they are sure to outlast the floor covering above them.
 

What else should you consider when heating your living room or dining room?

  • In kitchens and utility rooms a large proportion of the floor area is often taken up with units and it is not possible to heat beneath these. If you have a tile or stone floor you can choose one of Heat Mat’s more powerful 200W or 240W/sqm heating systems to guarantee a quicker heating time even when a proportion of the floor is unheated.
  • As well as ensuring that no underfloor heating is laid beneath your kitchen or utility room units it is important to make sure that other areas are left unheated. These include beneath fridges and freezers, washing machines and bins. Dog beds act as a large thermal block so you should also leave these areas unheated, or alternatively have a small mat beneath the dog bed which you can separately control the temperature of.
  • Electric underfloor heating does not suffer from the harmfully hot surfaces of many water and electric based wall heating, and unlike conventional radiators and water based underfloor heating there is no risk of water damage from burst or leaking pipes.
  • Underfloor heating will ensure that your floor dries out quickly after becoming damp through mopping, spills of water or wet footprints.
  • If the floor of your kitchen of utility room is badly insulated you should consider installing thermal insulation boards on the floor before installing your underfloor heating. Unfortunately, many houses from the 1970’s and before have no insulation in their floors. The insulation boards will minimise the heating time of your system as well as helping it to run more energy efficiently.
 

Which electric underfloor heating system is most suitable?

  • Heating mat systems are encased in a latex screed or fitted beneath tile adhesive helping them to evenly distribute their heat and mitigating any thermal blocks on top of the floor (items placed on a floor that prevent heat from escaping into the room). Many kitchens are tiled and these fast-to-fit systems are perfectly suited to tile and stone floors where they can provide the fastest reacting underfloor heating system of any type. If you have chosen a luxury vinyl floor (LVT) or a bonded engineered board the heating mats can be covered with a levelling compound or latex screed and the flooring can be laid on top.
  • As with our heating mats, 3mm cables must be installed beneath a latex screed or tile adhesive and are most commonly used beneath a tile or stone floor. They are more suited to small or complicated areas as heating mats are quicker to fit in most rooms above 3m². If 3mm cables are installed onto Heat Mat’s Decoupling membrane it speeds up the cable installation process and the membrane takes the movement out of the sub-floor preventing any risk of the floor surface cracking from sub-floor movement.
  • If you have chosen laminate or engineered board flooring, our fast-to-fit Combymat system offers a great option for your kitchen or utility room. The system is installed onto a 6mm insulation board which prevents downward heat loss as well as providing sound insulation. The entire heating system requires only 6mm of build height including its insulation layer and it is a dry installation, requiring no levelling compounds or screeds. If you have chosen carpet or luxury vinyl tiles you can add overlay boards on top of the heating system to allow these floor coverings to be laid. As Combymat is a ‘floating floor’ electric underfloor heating system, this is the perfect choice if there is a lot of movement in your sub-floor.
  • In-screed heating cables would normally only be used in new build or major renovation work where a 55mm screed is being laid. They have the lowest material cost of any electric underfloor heating system and they create a very stable temperature, so are most appropriate when the room will be regularly heated to the same schedule. The cables do not increase the floors build height (if a 55mm or more screed is already being laid) and they can be installed at any Wattage output desired.