How Easy is it to Fit Underfloor Heating?
This is the million-dollar question, just how easy is it to fit underfloor heating and can you do it yourself? Quite simply, it really depends on your own skills and knowledge. Electric underfloor heating is the easiest system to fit, especially now that the use of heat matting has been introduced. The matting is very thin, which makes it a good choice for an existing room, as you can take the carpet up, add insulation and heat matting to the top and then re-lay a floor of laminate over the top. The finished floor level will not be too different from the rest of the house; you may have a small lip between the rooms, but nothing more prominent.
Underfloor heating is more appropriate for new builds, as the upheaval in an existing room would be phenomenal. The whole floor would have to come up and pipe work has to be set into the floor, so this really isn’t the best option for existing spaces or for the DIY enthusiast. In the case of a wet underfloor heating system you are looking at skills in plumbing and electrics, while for heat mats or cables, only electrical skills are required. If you can employ an electrician and help with some of the foundation work yourself, installing an electric underfloor heating system may actually be quite straightforward. It then becomes simply a question of whether you have the skills required to lay the floor covering.