Laying underfloor heating in the bathroom

In every house, in a city apartment, the bathroom is one of the most frequently visited rooms. Due to the intensity and specifics of domestic use, special requirements are placed on the bathroom. The main task for any owner is to create the necessary microclimate in the bathroom, which will correspond to the operating conditions of the room. Warm water floors are in this case a very convenient and practical technical tool with which you can increase the level of comfort in your bathroom.

We often find ourselves in the bathroom without shoes. Slippers and socks have to be removed, so in those cases when our feet touch the cold tiles on the floor, the sensations are not pleasant. Water heated floor in the bathroom will completely eliminate this problem, turning your bathroom into a cozy warm corner of cleanliness and freshness. The tile, used in most cases as a floor covering, will become pleasant to the touch. The benefits of such an acquisition are obvious. In homes where bathrooms and toilets are equipped with underfloor heating, humidity is significantly reduced. The warm floor in the bathroom not only helps to maintain a cozy and comfortable temperature inside, but also prevents the development of fungal formations. Consider what constitutes the floors in the heated bathroom.

The main reason that forces you to make a water-heated floor in the bathroom

The main attribute of sanitary facilities, regardless of the intended use of the building, is tiled flooring, which is used to line floors and panels. The tile is a good waterproofing material, it is perfectly amenable to maintenance during operation, it is durable and durable. From the point of view of sanitary and hygienic standards, tiled coatings are the safest. However, despite all the obvious advantages, tiles, porcelain stoneware have a low heat capacity. Due to their structure, ceramic coatings quickly release heat, remaining constantly cold and cool. This effect is not always pleasant, especially in a domestic environment.

To give preference to other finishing materials, equipping the bathroom, means to expose your home to the invasion of the fungus. Due to excessive humidity in sanitary facilities, any other coating is not able to stay in a normal state for a long time. Rot, mold and other negative reactions will become your constant companions. Tiles, on the contrary, completely exclude the appearance of such processes. In addition, if you organize the heating of tiles, you can significantly increase the comfort of sanitary facilities.

On a note: for the first time, the idea of ​​​​heating tiles from below was implemented in England when the Olympic swimming pool was being built in London, during preparations for the 1948 Olympics. Even then, it was decided to equip all the tiles in the swimming area with special heating through central heating pipes.

Later, private housing construction began to use this technology. Water heated floor, equipped in the bathroom, has become an integral attribute of residential buildings in England, the USA, and other European countries. Such luxury came to us 50 years later, when private small-scale housing construction began to develop actively.

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It would be superfluous to assume that such technology has radically changed the situation with heating plumbing situations. The bathroom is not for us the room where we spend most of our time. Permanent underfloor heating in this case is not required. It is much more important that it is in our presence that the bathroom remains dry and warm. In this case, the reception of water procedures will become much more pleasant, and the bathroom itself will dry out faster, preventing the fungus from appearing and spreading.

Benefits of underfloor heating in the bathroom

To date, there are two options for such a heating system: electric and water. Both in the first case and in the second, both options are equally effective. The only difference is how such heating works and how difficult it is to mount it at home. Underfloor heating, which gives off heat by heating a liquid heat carrier, is the most economical. Electric heating, despite its simplicity and lightness of design, cannot be called economical and cost-effective. A water circuit laid under a tile will work much more efficiently and its operation will not affect your budget so much. The main advantages of a water heating system for underfloor heating include the following qualities and capabilities:

• economical mode of the main heating equipment;
• the ability to use underfloor heating as the main and as an additional way of home heating;
• the warm floor in the bathroom makes not only the tiled floor pleasant to the touch, but also warms the room itself;
• the ability to adjust the heating temperature of sanitary facilities at your discretion.

Despite the obvious advantages, this heating system has its drawbacks. They are rather economic, however, upon detailed consideration, in terms of choosing a heating option, they can turn out to be significant. The cost of a heating system for a warm floor for a bathroom is approximately 1,500 rubles per 1 sq. meter. And that’s just the consumables. If we talk about work, then in this case it is possible to multiply the expenditure part by 2. Not all owners of a city apartment are ready to take such a step, equipping their toilet or bathroom with special floor heating. Here it is necessary to take into account the large volumes of preparatory work and the very complexity of installing a water floor.

On a note: for an average city apartment, in which the bathroom area is 3-4 m², with a ceiling height of 240-250 cm, it is not always possible to equip floor heating, from a technical point of view. Here it is appropriate to talk about the complexity of installation and the limited internal space itself.

We make a warm floor in the bathroom with our own hands

In order to avoid high costs and get the desired effect, you should thoroughly prepare for such a reconstruction. First you need to calculate how much and what kind of consumables will be needed, what devices and mechanisms will have to be bought for the installation of the structure. Do-it-yourself underfloor heating in the bathroom is much easier than undergoing a massive renovation of your entire apartment.

For these purposes, you will need:

• metal-plastic pipes, approximate length 6-7 meters (based on 1 m²);
• collector — mixing unit;
• a number of other components, depending on the device of the collector and the internal volume of the room;
• reinforcing mesh, consumables for the manufacture of screeds;
• tile or porcelain stoneware as a finishing material.

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Installation of a warm floor in the bathroom can be done by connecting to a coil, or if you have an autonomous heating boiler, lay a special pipeline. As for the pipeline for the water circuit, here we are talking about metal-plastic pipes. These consumables are quite reliable and have an acceptable cost.

Before starting work, you should decide on the type of floor heating system. There are three options, each with its own pros and cons. The flooring is a structure, the equipment of which is not associated with the arrangement of a concrete screed. Here you can use linoleum as a floor covering.

Wooden water floor heating can be equipped in the country, where laying a concrete screed is not always justified from a technical point of view. For a city apartment or a stone private house, it would be best to lay a warm floor on a concrete base by creating a concrete screed. The heating of the floor in the bathroom in this case will be carried out evenly, by heating the entire monolith. In addition, such a floor will eliminate the possibility of mold and the presence of constant dampness in the room. With a concrete screed, it is much easier to create the necessary waterproofing layer, eliminating the flow of water into neighboring rooms and into rooms on the floor below.

Important! When using a stacked structure or when working with a concrete screed, an involuntary increase in floor height by 6-7 cm should be taken into account. Whether such a redevelopment of the bathroom suits you is up to you. In most cases, such a reduction in the height of the ceiling in the bathroom is not critical.

The principle of operation of a warm floor

In order to have an idea of ​​how a warm water floor works in a bathroom, let’s take a look at a typical everyday situation. After laying the pipeline, the contour is filled with a new concrete screed or a type-setting floor or wooden structure is installed. Two pipes, supply and discharge (return) are connected directly to the collector. The heating temperature is controlled by a thermostat.

The supply pipe receives heated to a temperature of 35-45⁰ boiler water or water from a centralized hot water supply system, only at a much higher temperature. Through the return pipe, the cooled coolant enters the boiler or returns to the domestic hot water system.

On a note: if you have a large bathroom, connecting a warm floor to a centralized hot water supply system may adversely affect the quality of water heating. Not only the tenants of your apartment will suffer from this, but also the neighbors in the house. It is officially forbidden to connect a water circuit of a warm floor to a central heating system. To connect to the DHW system, you will need to obtain permission from the controlling authorities.

Such difficulties often become an obstacle to arranging a water-heated floor in a city apartment in a bathroom. The way out of this situation is to install an electric heating element, the installation of which will take less time and practically not affect the functionality of the main house systems and communications. Typically, in private homes, the bathroom is located near the boiler equipment, so you do not need to spend money on laying additional pipes. The entire domestic heating system can be calculated taking into account the subsequent connection of an additional heating circuit, both in terms of hydraulic load and in terms of the operation of the heater.

When it comes to connecting a warm floor to an autonomous heater, the heating circuit is equipped with a circulation pump. If the installation is carried out to the central hot water supply, the pump is not required. The figure — the diagram shows the connection of a warm floor to a heated towel rail.

Conclusion

For an apartment in which there is centralized heating and hot water supply, it is not advisable to make a warm floor in the bathroom using hot water from a centralized main. For a private house, on the contrary, such a technical solution will be fully justified, both from an aesthetic point of view and from an economic point of view. Despite the fact that the financial issue in this case is not so significant, such a heating scheme will bring certain advantages in the future. In the cold season, with intensive use of the bathroom and the bathroom, a warm water floor will be very appropriate.

Due to the fact that the scale of work in the case of heating bathroom equipment is not so large, each of us is able to make such a gift for ourselves. A warm tiled floor in your bathroom will come in handy, especially when you prefer to keep your bathroom clean, dry and warm.