Warm floor in a country house

First you need to decide what a warm floor is and why it is needed. Warm floor - this is not just a device that allows you to walk without shudder on the tiled floor of the bathroom in the early cold morning. This is a room heating system, which in some cases can even be primary, rather than auxiliary.

Moreover, heating a room with underfloor heating has a number of advantages compared to radiator heating. So, heated air near the floor surface retains a feeling of warmth and comfort, and colder in the upper part of the room provides freshness at the required humidity level. In a word, a warm floor is a favorable microclimate in an apartment or a room.

There are two options for installing a warm floor in a country house:

1) a warm floor, made using pipes included in the general heating system and mounted in the floor;

2) electric underfloor heating.

The first option is labor intensive and has high requirements for the professionalism of the performer. In addition, he has a very mediocre attitude to electrical engineering. Therefore, we consider in detail only the installation option electric underfloor heating.

The floor in the premises of a country house can be poured with concrete screed, and can be leveled using sheet material, such as plywood. In both cases, the installation of an electric heated floor is not ruled out. In the case of plywood, only applicable infrared film underfloor heatingmounted under the floor covering. And in the case of flooded floors, you can apply underfloor heating cableinstalled immediately before pouring.

Film underfloor heating - This is a very simple technical solution. It is supplied in the form of rolls, divided into segments with copper contact plates. The plates are designed to connect the floor to the regulator, and the segment structure is preferred so that for any room of the most complex configuration it is possible to compose your own design of the warm floor, cutting the roll into segments.

The film floor is located on the thermal insulation film with copper plates down. The part of the floor that will be permanently covered by something massive, such as furniture, is not equipped with warm floors. Contact plates of different segments, connected in parallel, should be located near the wall where the regulator will be located.

The controller is connected using mounting wires (for example, PV-3) and special terminals with clamps. The temperature sensor is located between the heated floor and the insulation film. Moreover, it must have electrical insulation in the form heat shrink tubing or just a layer of electrical tape.

Regulators for electric underfloor heating purchased separately, and their choice is very large. There are knobs with a built-in clock, alarm, or even radio function. But there are essentially two decisive factors for choosing: the regulator's compliance with the power consumed by the underfloor heating, and the regulator's design (bill of lading, or for hidden wiring).

Determining the power in any particular case will not be difficult at all. In the passport documentation, the electric power consumed by the floor per unit area is given. Thus, it is enough to calculate the area occupied by your floor, and multiply it by the passport value.

Installation of cable underfloor heating made in screed floor. On the cleaned surface of the subfloor, a mounting strip is installed for attaching the cable (a perforator and dowel-nails are required). Then performed strob to output floor cables and temperature sensor to the controller.

The heating cable is mounted on that part of the surface that will not be covered by furniture or anything like that. Arbitrary shortening of the cable is unacceptable - its entire length must be used.

An exception is the thermal cable, which has two trunk lines connected by heating segments. Such a cable externally resembles a staircase, in which “steps” cannot be cut, and “railings” are very possible. From several "stairs" connected to the regulator in parallel, the necessary complex figure is assembled, corresponding to the room.

The temperature sensor is installed in thin corrugated tube with a blanked end to prevent ingress of liquid concrete screed. After installing the cable and sensor, a resistance measurement is performed, which must correspond to the passport, and the floor is poured. Installation and connection of the controller does not have any differences with the installation of the controller for a film underfloor heating.