Underfloor heating thermostats – keeping your house warm!
Thermostats enable the level of heat in a room to be kept constant by monitoring the temperature and switching the heating on and off automatically as required. They only work when your heating time clock is set to ‘on’. There are a range of different underfloor heating thermostats available, from the sophisticated digital programmable versions to simple manual ones.
Where floor heating is installed in more than one room of a house, it usually has a thermostat to control the heat in each area or zone. Building Regulations demand that areas over 150m sq. are divided into more than one zone, each with its own temperature control. Underfloor heating thermostats are normally positioned on the wall of the room being heated, except bathrooms where they must be outside the room. It is important to ensure you buy the correct thermostat for your system, whether it is electric or warm water; often they are included in DIY underfloor heating kits.
Underfloor heating thermostats monitor temperature through inbuilt air sensors and through remote sensors built into the floor. Programmable devices can be set to maintain different temperatures at different times of the day. Most allow you to set different patterns for weekdays and weekends, depending on your routine. Cheaper, manual devices tend to raise the temperature slightly above the set point, switch off, then let the temperature fall a few degrees below it before they come back on again. Digital underfloor heating thermostats are more responsive and maintain a more constant heat.