In this article, we will tell you about 16 common mistakes that are most often made when installing a water heated floor. As a result, we get additional costs for equipment of higher power, energy costs, re-installation of underfloor heating and heating systems, uncomfortable room temperature, uneven floor heating and deformation of the floor covering. And we do it all with our own hands

This is the worst mistake in (and any other heating system). When installing radiators of the heating system, one should not be guided by the same norms that are considered generally accepted in a house without warm floors. Do not install sectional batteries according to the number of windows in the room and based on the calculation of the area of ​​the room. This can lead to a non-functioning system or an increase in unnecessary installation costs for the heating system.

If you install heating devices of less power than required, then the heating will eventually have to be completely redone: install additional radiators or increase the number of sections in the already installed ones.

According to the rules, the installer himself is obliged to calculate the number and power of radiators and underfloor heating. If a specialist offers you to put radiators under each window opening, and the number of sections is determined by your desire or budget, then it is better to refuse right away. In this case, there is a possibility that you will freeze in winter. As a result, you will have to change radiators for more powerful ones, or build on existing ones. Taking into account the cost of installation and dismantling of heating, an impressive amount is obtained. In addition, you may have to remodel the heated floors themselves.

The first thing to do before installing a warm floor is to calculate the heat loss. Such a calculation will show whether the power of the underfloor heating is sufficient to heat the building or not. It will allow you to determine the required power of additional heating devices. This calculation avoids many mistakes.

The calculation takes into account such positions as the pitch of the underfloor heating pipe, wall thickness and inner diameter of the pipe, thickness of the reinforcement mesh, total screed thickness, indent from the bearing wall, insulation thickness, screed thickness above the pipe, thickness and type of floor covering, substrate thickness or a layer of tile adhesive.

Incorrect floor heating pipe pitch

In most cases, the step of the underfloor heating pipe is calculated arbitrarily by installers. It can be 20 cm, and maybe 25 cm.Sometimes they even make a pipe step of 30 or even 40 cm.

This is the second most common mistake in installing a warm floor with your own hands. It occurs due to the lack of heat loss calculation. However, in the construction of a warm floor, the pipe step has an exact value. By increasing the pipe pitch more than 20 cm, you can get a temperature zebra when the floor surface is warmed up in stripes.

Poor insulation between underfloor heating pipes or lack thereof

Laying heat insulation for a warm floor

Often installation of underfloor heating produced without insulation.

The installers believe that the heat goes up and, in this regard, they lay the pipe directly on concrete or on the ground. This approach is unacceptable. The fact is that the thermal conductivity of a concrete screed is 30 or more times greater than that of air. In this regard, thermal energy, according to the laws of physics, will dissipate along the structure and go into the ground.

You will have high heating costs and it is unlikely that you will be warm

Lack of damper

When heated, materials tend to expand. The screed in which the underfloor heating pipes are mounted will also expand when heated. This can lead to the pipe simply bursting. As a result, the flooring deforms. In this regard, special damper tapes must be installed around the perimeter of the underfloor heating installation. If the area of ​​one zone of the warm floor is more than 40 m 2, it is advisable to divide it into parts. Therefore, there must be compensation clearances.

Underfloor heating pipe contour length

If you are going to do DIY floor heating installation, then it should be taken into account that they create a large hydraulic resistance. As a result, the coolant in the pipes begins to circulate poorly. In this regard, when laying pipes with a diameter of 16 mm, it is recommended to make the circuits no more than 100 m long, so as not to buy a more expensive powerful circulation pump. As a result of installing such a pump:

1. Pipe wear increases.
2. A larger pump is more expensive.
3. Excessive consumption of electricity increases.
4. Noises appear in the floor pipes.

All this can lead to the fact that such a system will not work.

Watch the video about the installation length of the underfloor heating pipe:

A large number of circuits per collector group

According to building rules, it is allowed to use no more than 8 circuits in one collector. European standards allow the installation of 12 circuits. As the contours increase, the chances of adequate system performance decrease.

Incorrectly selected circulation pump

Buying a pump that is more powerful than required can weaken your budget by unnecessarily wasting electricity. Installing a weak pump often leads to the fact that part of the warm floor, and sometimes the entire system as a whole, does not warm up. As a result, you can get a warm floor in parts or a non-working system.

Wrong floor heating regulation

On the underfloor heating collector, adjustment is most often made

Often, inexperienced installers install a water-heated floor at home by connecting the collectors directly. This leads to an increase in the room temperature. As a result, you will be either hot or stuffy. It must be remembered that the temperature of the floor surface should not be higher than 35 0 C. This cannot be achieved without correctly installed mixing assemblies and regulators.

Screed too thin or too thick

Too thin a screed can impede the uniform heating of the warm floor. A thick screed can significantly increase the heating and cooling period of the warm floor. It is very uncomfortable. Cooling problems are especially problematic. When the house warms up to the desired temperature, the boiler will automatically turn off, and the floors will continue to give off heat to the room. As a result, the flooring will become very hot in the evening. At night, when the room temperature drops and the boiler turns on, the floor will remain cold until morning.

Incorrectly matched flooring

Even the correct installation of underfloor heating may not guarantee your comfort. Most often, the temperature of the underfloor heating depends on the floor covering. The higher the thermal conductivity of the coating, the better. On warm floors, very often there are not very suitable materials made of wood or carpets. When calculating the heat loss of the system, it is necessary to take into account what materials are used in the flooring. This point is often overlooked.

Lack of air vents in the distribution manifolds

Air vent example

Air is the enemy of any hydraulic heating system. Air must periodically escape from the system. If it is not possible to release it, sooner or later an air lock appears, which will block the circulation of the coolant in the system. As a result, you end up with a poorly performing system or not working at all. In this regard, either Mayevsky cranes or auto-air vents are installed on the collectors.

Wrong order of connecting the circuits to the collector

Installing a warm floor with your own hands often leads to this most common mistake. It occurs when the circuit itself and the return flow of the circuit are planted on the same collector. As a result, this circuit does not work. It looks like this. Above is the supply manifold. The pipe from it goes to the water supply to the system and returns to the same collector, to another outlet. The result is a dead loop.

Sometimes during installation, the sequence of connecting the circuits to the collectors is violated. It is advisable, when installing the collector, that each circuit is connected in order to the collector, that is, the supply of this circuit must coincide with the same connection point on the return collector. The next circuit is the second valve on the supply and the second valve on the return manifold. Due to the change of order, installers can have difficulties with regulating the circuit, which can lead to an inoperative circuit or an entire zone. Such a floor heating system can be very difficult to set up.

Damage or clogging of pipes during work

It can be:

1. Broken pipes during the installation of a warm floor.
2. Compression of pipes during the installation of the screed.
3. Drilling or all kinds of punctures.
4. Pipe clogging with sand or cement mortars during construction work.

In general, everything that will interfere with the normal circulation of the coolant can be attributed here.

According to our statistics, the pipe is punctured quite often. Then someone for some reason drills the floors, or makes some grooves. The same is possible with subsequent repairs around the house. Then some painter or electrician will put the scaffolds on the pipes of the warm floor before the screed is made. This needs to be monitored.

Incorrect connection of floor heating pipes and radiators

It must be remembered that the radiator pipes and the underfloor heating pipes have different temperature conditions.

Installation of a water underfloor heating requires additional installation of collectors. Connecting a warm floor with your own hands and the heating system to one collector will complicate the subsequent balancing of the system. This is due to the fact that the coolant in the radiators should warm up to 60 0 С - 80 0 С, and the temperature of the warm floor should not exceed 35 0 С.

Therefore, these systems should not be combined in one manifold assembly.

Use of substandard materials

In this case, you should always remember that the savings should be reasonable. So, by installing low-quality components or valves, you are guaranteed to get a flood after a while. By saving on the quality or quantity of the cement used for the floor screed, you risk installing the entire system from scratch.

Lack of hydraulic testing of the system after installation

This is the most common mistake. The heating system during the installation process with your own hands several times. When installing a new heating system in a house or during a major overhaul, pressure testing should be done several times. The first time it is performed at the moment when the system has just been mounted. The second time the crimping should be done after installing the drywall in the same room where we install underfloor heating. The third pressure testing takes place after the completion of rough finishing works. It is advisable to complete it before the tile is laid, the wallpaper is glued, the baseboards are installed.

Errors when installing underfloor heating: what you need to know?

Installation of underfloor heating screed has a number of features. It is important to take into account that the finished structure cannot be disassembled in order to repair or change something in it. The only thing that can be done is to split it and discard it.

At the very least, this will have to be done with separate screed pieces, which are limited by heat seams and have one water circuit. Therefore, it is very important to approach with the utmost responsibility and avoid mistakes.

Reasons why the boiler does not turn off

Sometimes it happens that during the operation of a warm floor, the boiler starts to work much longer, and, as a result, fuel consumption increases. This is due to the fact that the screed heats the foundation, street walls and even the air around the house. What is the reason?

It happens that there are elevations at the edges of the base on which the screed is installed. If you do not put insulation in this place, this will lead to the described problem. Another common reason is the savings on extruded polystyrene foam. When this material is put in much less than necessary, the same result is obtained: the screed heats the street.

A large number of pipeline circuits are located in a warm floor. Moreover, each of them is in its own piece of screed, which has a limitation in the form of heat seams. For the efficient operation of the warm floor, you should use special metal-plastic pipes with an outer diameter of 1.6 cm. The optimal length in the circuit is from 50 to 80 meters.

Therefore, it is very important that the length of the contours is approximately equal. If you make one of the circuits too long, then you will have to increase the resistance in the other circuits. Because of this, the pump will be overloaded, and the underfloor heating will cease to function.

The appearance on the floor of areas of different temperatures

When laying pipes, it is important not to exceed a distance of 20 cm between them. Otherwise, areas of different temperatures may occur. The optimal laying step is 15 cm, moreover, about 6.7 meters of pipes are located in one square meter of the warm floor. At the outer walls, it is recommended to do a laying step of no more than 10 cm, because this zone should warm up more.

In order for the screed to perform its function well, not to crack or tear pipes, it is important to take into account several main details.

First of all, these are:

1. A screed made from a mixture of sand and cement must be at least 8 cm thick.
2. One piece with a contour should not exceed a linear dimension of 4 meters.
3. It is imperative to add fiberglass and plasticizer.
4. It is necessary to reinforce the screed pieces with a 15x15 cm mesh made of 0.4 cm wire and fixed at a distance of 2 cm from the bottom plane.

What factors lead to pipe rupture and screed cracking:

1. There are no expansion joints between the wall and adjacent screed pieces.
2. Lack of thermal insulation on the pipes located in the screed.
3. Lack of thermal insulation on the pipes located in the screed grooves to the batteries.
4. Lack of pipe insulation up to 50 cm located at the entrance or exit of the screed.

In order for the pump to cope, you cannot connect more than 8 pipes to one collector. When there are more pipes, an additional manifold should be installed. If there is no heat carrier mixing unit, and the underfloor heating system is connected incorrectly, then overheating will occur. But in the case when the length of the circuits does not exceed 40 meters, you can connect them through RTL boxes.

It must be equipped with air vents without fail. Otherwise, underfloor heating will not function.

Also, an incorrect, chaotic connection of the circuits to the collector will lead to a complete shutdown of the system. It is important to prevent the appearance of dents, kinks and other defects on the pipes. In order to avoid serious financial losses, it is recommended to test the hydraulics of the underfloor heating without fail before installing the screed.

Why you can't do without radiators

In order to save money, some people decide to use only for heating the room. But this is possible only in places with the warmest climates.

In other cases, the warm floor will not be able to cope with this task without overheating, which is very dangerous for it. And very few people will like walking on a very hot floor. So for what exactly reasons should you not independently calculate the heat loss for installing a warm floor?

Under normal conditions, it is impossible to determine what air exchange in the room is at the moment and how it will change when the temperature drops significantly. In addition, it is important to take into account that ventilation leaves from 30 to 40% of the generated energy, and when there is a draft in the room, this figure rises to 90%.

Also, it will not be possible to independently calculate the flow of solar energy, the humidity of structures, shading and many other factors. It would be more correct to use general approximate calculations of heat loss for the household level, and also take into account the experience that has a positive result.

During construction work, it is necessary to avoid the above-described mistakes, then the warm floor will function correctly and provide a comfortable microclimate in the living room.

How is a water heat-insulated floor arranged?
In short, a water-heated floor is a long and narrow pipeline laid in a concrete screed. Hot water circulates through the pipeline, the floor heats up. Such systems are successfully used in private houses as the main or auxiliary circuit of the heating system.

In practice, it all looks like a rather complex floor cake, consisting of many layers. And the installation of each of these layers must be excellent.
The system consists of:
1. Substrates such as a concrete slab.
2. Waterproofing layer.
3. A layer of thermal insulation.
4. Pipe systems.
5. Concrete screed.
6. Finishing screed.
7. Floor covering.

It makes no sense to describe each of the stages of installing a warm floor in detail, we will dwell only on the most common flaws and gross mistakes.

Correct foundation device
As with any type of work, when installing a water heated floor, you should adhere to the axiom: the base must be flat and clean. The best option: after removing the old floor cake (if any), make a rough cement screed and let it dry thoroughly. Do not place the waterproofing on an uneven or dirty substrate, as this can damage the material.
It is very important to correctly place the junction of the rough screed to the wall, since negligence at this point can later lead to difficulties during the installation of the damper tape. The wall must be carefully plastered, possibly several times.

Waterproofing works
A sufficiently strong vapor-permeable polyethylene film is usually used as waterproofing. It is not difficult to spread it on a flat surface. However, then a special damper tape should be laid around the perimeter of the room. Problems often arise here.

It is very important that the damper tape lies neatly, perfectly flat. Some so-called "masters" fasten it carelessly, in the expectation that when pouring a concrete screed, the tape will naturally align and take the correct position. In practice, air "pockets" are formed along the sagging belt when poured with concrete, which do not contribute to the insulation of the building.

Features of thermal insulation
Rigid polystyrene foam boards are usually used as thermal insulation. They are laid in two layers, in a checkerboard pattern, so that the joints do not coincide. After installing the insulation, all the unevenness of the base will become obvious. If the slabs sway when they are walked on, then they are laid on an uneven basis. This significantly reduces the thermal insulation properties of such an expensive material.

Another important element of insulation is reflective film. Often they use a special material, provided with markings, along which it is very convenient to lay pipes. Some installers simply cut the film at the border of the expanded polystyrene boards, which should not be done. In order for the film to lie flat, firmly and correctly, it must be tucked over the edge of the insulation plates. If the base is even, the styrofoam is laid correctly and the damper tape is securely fixed, the film will be well fixed. You will not need to use scotch tape for its installation.

According to some experts, tape should not be used to fix the reflective film. They believe that when heated during the operation of a warm floor, scotch tape can release substances harmful to humans.

Correct pipe laying
At this stage, a number of rather gross mistakes are made. To begin with, many craftsmen neglect such a simple rule as drawing up a schematic plan that reflects the layout of pipes.
When drawing up a plan, you must:
- determine the indentation of pipes from the wall;
- determine the size of the step between the pipes;
- choose the layout of the pipeline in each room (usually a "spiral" or "snake" is used);
- choose a place to place the collector (the closer to the center of the house, the better);
- decide on the places of passage of the pipe through the wall, etc.

Such a plan, even before the start of installation, allows you to identify problem and difficult places. The lack of a plan-scheme has the opposite effect: difficulties arise as the pipes are laid, in order to resolve them, you need to either redo some of the work, or hope that under the screed, "it will go away anyway."

The distance of pipes from the wall should be 75-100 mm. It does not make sense to lay the pipe directly against the wall to heat the skirting board installed during the installation of the floor covering. Another important point is that when turning, the pipe should be bent carefully and at the correct angle. Only under this condition will the pipeline lie clearly along the marking grid, otherwise no marking will save the work.

Pay attention that the direct pipeline and the "return" do not touch near the collector, it is necessary to lay the entire "return" in a special corrugated pipe in order to avoid temperature distortions that are fatal to the system.

Accounting for "furniture" places
In recommendations for the installation of underfloor heating systems, there is often a requirement to mark the location of furniture on the plan and not to lay underfloor heating pipes under them. On the one hand, it is clear: why heat the furniture? On the other hand: will you really have to give up rearranging furniture in the future? After all, if the cabinet is moved, a section of the cold floor will remain in its place.

Experts recommend a balanced approach to the problem. It makes no sense to heat the floor where the furniture is built-in. This can be a wardrobe or a furniture wall in the kitchen. In all other places, you can safely lay pipes. If there is a risk of overheating of the furniture, you can choose items that do not fit tightly to the floor, for example, a wardrobe with small legs, etc.

Filling pipes with screed
After the pipes are laid clearly according to the markings, the stage of pouring the cement-concrete screed begins. Most experienced installers are familiar with this procedure. To strengthen this layer, a special reinforcing mesh is used. It should be laid in such a way that the metal of the mesh does not come into contact with the pipes of the underfloor heating. During operation, the pipe material will undergo an expansion / contraction cycle, which can cause friction against the mesh. As a result, the pipes will be damaged over time.

If pipe-laying markers are not being used, reinforcement mesh can be placed under the pipes. But even in this case, care should be taken that the pipes and the metal of the mesh do not come into contact.

Are technological disruptions so terrible?
Some builders, beginners and even experienced ones, are skeptical about mistakes when laying a water-heated floor. They believe that it makes no sense to carry out the work so carefully, the result of which will be hidden under a layer of concrete-cement screed.
But disregard for the requirements of technology will very soon manifest itself in the form:
- uneven heating of the floor, some of which will be too hot, and some will not be warm enough or even just cold;
- excessive costs for the purchase of materials, in particular, pipes, which, if incorrectly marked and laid, will require more;
- an increase in heating costs caused by, again, irrational pipe laying and non-compliance with technology;
- unplanned repairs and even complete dismantling of a substandard floor heating system.

Indeed, many violations of the technology are not noticeable after installation. Feet warm, the owners are happy. But time invariably proves the importance of a professional attitude to any business, especially to such a complex one as the installation of a warm floor.

The process of installing a warm floor, especially for a non-professional, has many nuances that are best known. Below we will consider the main mistakes when installing a warm electric floor.

• Material calculation is incorrect... When calculating or the size of the mats, you need to use only the free area of ​​the room, which will not be crammed with furniture, appliances and other objects. If you install a warm floor under large-sized objects, the system will overheat in these places, which will cause it to fail.
  
  
• Incorrect calculation of the power of the warm floor. The desire to save money, deliberately choosing less power than necessary, leads to insufficient heating. Such a floor will heat up extremely slowly and will bring you one disappointment. It is necessary to correctly calculate the power for heating the room, taking into account the heat loss.
• Buying a shorter cable and layout it with a large pitch. Leads to the same consequences as the previous point.
• Incorrectly calculated heating cable routing system without observing the distance between adjacent lines (10-12 cm) will create a "zebra effect". When the TP is heated, noticeable zones of a more heated and less heated floor are formed.
• Shortening the heating cable. Some experts believe that if a too long cable was chosen, then the cable can be shortened without problems. However, heating cables must not be cut! leads to an increase in resistance, an increase in its power, overheating and failure! If you still have a cable, you need to reduce the laying spacing (minimum laying spacing of 6 cm) or increase the heated area.
• Crossing and excessive convergence of heating cable strings... Resistive heating cable should not have points of contact, intersections and lines close to each other. The minimum distance is usually 6-7 cm, depending on the power of the heating cable. Violation of this requirement leads to overheating and failure of the heating cable.
• Non-compliance with the bending radius of the heating cable... The minimum bending radius is usually 5 to 10 times the cable diameter.
• Connection to the thermostat of the underfloor heating sections, whose total power will exceed the power of the thermostat. It is possible only throughcontactor.
  
  
• Close (less than 10 cm) location to heating systems.
• Before pouring concrete into the floor, it is recommended to put wooden blocks between the cable loops, on which the boards are then laid. These walkways will help prevent damage to the cable when pouring concrete.
• Tacking the cable with gypsum plaster.
• The use of shallow sockets for installation.
• Using metal spatulas. When laying tiles on the surface of the mats, make sure that the craftsmen use only rubber spatulas. Very often, tiling masters ignore this question.
• Warehousing of tools, materials on a cable, not covered with a screed, installation of a ladder.
• Uneven screed thickness and exceeding the recommended screed thickness. The thickness of the cement-sand screed (DSP) must be at least 30 millimeters. Thermal insulation must be installed, for example, on balconies. Moreover, in this case, it is necessary to lay not 3-5 mm, but at least 50 mm of heat-insulating material and 40 mm of DSP on top.
• Lack of thermal insulation. If you will use or when laying the heating cable in cold rooms, it is necessary to install thermal insulation
  
  
• Lack of a heating floor installation scheme. Do not forget to draw a scheme for laying the warm floor! When doing this, indicate the distance to walls and other objects, the location of the end sleeves and couplings, and the location of the sensor. The diagram will always come in handy when later you need to drill the floor to install doors with a threshold, plumbing and door bumpers.
  
  
  
• Turning on the warm floor ahead of time... Do not turn on the warm floor so that the screed dries faster! Wait several weeks depending on the thickness and type of mortar used. SNiPs standardize a period of 28 days. If you turn on the floor ahead of time, it may fail.
• Walking on the heating cable with solid shoes. This can damage conductors and insulation. Try to bypass the turns of the heating element. If you really can't do without walking on it, do it with caution, in shoes with soft soles. Eliminate the presence of unauthorized workers and other people in the room where the heated floor is installed.
• Errors when laying the floor sensor... The corrugated tube with a cable laid in it with at the end must be laid in the groove below the level of the cable laying and the sensor must fall exactly in the middle between the adjacent turns of the cable. Or if the sensor is laid at floor level, the tube with the sensor runs parallel to adjacent cable lines and is located at a distance of up to 50 cm from the wall.If the sensor is inserted into the extreme loop of the heated floor or too close to the wall, it is in a cold zone and displays the temperature incorrectly the entire floor, which leads to excessive consumption of electricity.
  
  
• The underfloor heating sensor is placed in the screed without a corrugated tube, which leads to the impossibility of simple replacement of the temperature sensor in case of failure.
• The end of the corrugation must be sealed so that the solution does not come into contact with the sensor.
• Sharp bend or turn of the corrugated tube for the floor sensor. If the transition of the floor-wall is not made smoothly, then it will also be impossible to change the temperature sensor in the future.
• Using regular tile adhesive or cement-sand screed without the addition of plasticizers. The use of mixtures that are not intended for joint work with a warm floor leads to the destruction of the screed or tiles. You can read more about the choice of tile adhesive.
• Air voids around the heating cable... This is especially true when laying the so-called. “Thin” heating cable or mats in tile adhesive. Failure to comply with this requirement in order to save the solution or simply out of ignorance will lead to overheating and failure of the cables. It is necessary to completely cover the heating cable with a layer of tile adhesive or cement-sand screed
• Use one heating cable / mat to heat different rooms... Since the built-in or remote sensor controls the temperature in the specific room where it is installed, and turns on and off the heating of the cable / mat when the preset comfortable temperature is reached. The same heating time in another room will lead to overheating or underheating of rooms that differ in volume.
• Neglecting floor heating resistance measurements and insulation resistance before and after laying, Check the results obtained with the numbers indicated in the product passport (taking into account the specified error), their coincidence means that the cable is intact. Record the measurements in the passport with the date of installation.
  
  
• It is forbidden to plug in the cable to test the functionality. until the moment when it is laid (especially in the bay) and the mortar is completely dry! Plugging in the cable under such conditions may damage it.
• Do not lay the heating cable on a dirty and dusty surface... During installation, make sure that the warm floor does not lie on construction debris, otherwise after pouring the screed under mechanical stress, it will quickly fail. Use an industrial vacuum cleaner to clean the floor and treat the surface with a primer

The underfloor heating system is quite popular today. Using a heating cable, thermomats, infrared film or pipes, you can heat the floor covering. In fact, it is not too difficult to carry out the laying of heating elements with your own hands, however, many inexperienced craftsmen make the simplest oversights, due to which the entire system may fail some time after installation. Below we will consider the main mistakes when installing a warm floor of a water and electric type.

1. The calculation of materials is incorrect. When calculating the length of the heating cable or the size of the mats, it is necessary to use the usable area of ​​the room, not the total. Usable area means that space that will not be overcrowded with furniture, appliances and other objects. If you mount heating elements under large-sized objects, the system will overheat in these places, which will cause it to fail. To avoid this mistake, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the technology.
2. Do not cut into pieces of suitable length. If the conductor is larger than necessary, try to lay it a little closer to each other, while not violating the manufacturer's requirements. We draw your attention to the fact that it is devoid of such a drawback, therefore, when installing it, you are unlikely to make this mistake.
3. Keep track of the laying step, as well as the indents from walls and other objects. Remember that the loops of the conductor must not intersect with each other, otherwise overheating may occur.
4. Observe the minimum bend radius indicated in the technical data. Typically, it ranges from 5 to 10 cable diameters.
5. Place the heating elements only on a clean surface. During installation, make sure that the warm floor does not lie on construction debris, otherwise after pouring the screed under mechanical stress, it will quickly fail. It is even recommended to remove all dust before installation work.
6. An elementary mistake, which inexperienced specialists also make, is ignoring the recommendations for dialing the system after installation. It is imperative that before pouring the screed or laying the parquet (on infrared film), measure the resistance of the system and check this value with the nominal value, which is indicated in the passport. Perhaps you made a connection error and the system no longer works. Then it will be much more difficult to repair the warm floor. We talked about that in detail in a separate article.
7. You can turn on the warm floor only after the screed has hardened. If you decide to check if the floor is heating before the grout dries, it could damage the system. It is strictly forbidden to turn on the cable in the bay at all.
8. The temperature sensor must be placed in a corrugation so that it can be easily retrieved at any time (for repair or replacement). The end of the corrugation must be sealed so that the solution does not get onto the sensor.
9. The sensor itself must be placed in the middle between the two turns of the cable so that it shows the temperature as accurately as possible. A too far distance from the cable will cause the system to work continuously and vice versa. It is recommended to place the temperature sensor closer to the surface of the new floor covering.
10. Each room should have its own floor heating circuit and its own thermostat. It is a gross mistake to save materials during installation and make a single system with one temperature controller.
11. During installation work, do not step on the cable, especially when wearing hard-soled shoes. This can damage conductors and insulation. Try to bypass the turns of the heating element.
12. Before pouring the screed, take a picture of the location of all the elements so that during the repair you can know where everything is.
13. In no case is it necessary to promote the fastest solidification of the solution by turning on the system. Those who advise turning on the heating immediately after installation will sooner or later face a situation where the system quickly fails.
14. Before starting work, be sure to read the instructions, in which the manufacturer can recommend important points. Our main mistake is that we do it first, and then read the instructions. So the opposite is better.
15. Remember, infrared underfloor heating needs to be laid under parquet, laminate and linoleum, and thermomats and heating cable under tiles. If you lay a plastic floor in a bathroom and put tile adhesive on it, the system will not work. It seems to be obvious facts, but sometimes they even manage to do this.