We make the warm floor from heating by our own hands

Warm water floors are comfortable and convenient, especially if they do not require the installation of a hot water boiler. In houses with radiator heating, you can connect warm floors to the heating system - this will make the water warm floors without extra costs.

Implementation of the

project A number of conditions are necessary for performing heated floors powered by a heating system. The heating system must be equipped with a circulation pump. In its absence, it is easier to spend and install a pump than to perform a gravity system with a sustained slope of the floor contour. The system can be either single-pipe or two-pipe. With a single-pipe system, the supply pipe of the warm floor is connected after the circulation pump, and the return pipe is installed in front of the pump.

You also need to calculate the length of the contours. For a two-pipe system, it should not be more than 50 meters, for a single-tube system, not more than 30 meters. If the heating circuit of the room is greater, it is necessary to divide it into several contours, laid in different zones or in parallel.

Floor preparation

To avoid heat losses and not to heat the floor slabs, prepare the surface of the rough floor before installing the heating circuit.

1. If the floor already has a floor covering - it must be removed, the cracks should be wiped with cement mortar, and the floor surface should be leveled with cement mortar or a thin layer of clean coarse sand. The surface of the floor must be checked by means of a level for the absence of distortions - if the contour of the warm floor is unevenly laid, areas with stagnation of the coolant are formed, which will worsen the heat transfer.
2. On the perimeter of the room, as well as at the junction of the heating circuits, it is necessary to install a damper tape. The tape is available in various widths, with or without an adhesive layer. The width of the tape should be chosen so that it is higher than the calculated height of the concrete screed. The method of fastening is chosen depending on the finish of the walls. To smooth walls, the tape can be glued with an adhesive layer. To the rough surfaces, the damper band is fastened with a dowel-nail for quick mounting. The tape is necessary in order that the heating and cooling of the floor does not destroy the screed.
   

   Damper strip for floor screed

3. After that, a hard insulation must be laid on the floor, which will not allow the heat to go down. This can be extruded polystyrene in the form of slabs or roll foamed polyethylene with a foil coating. Plates are laid back and forth, not allowing gaps and cracks. Rolled materials are also laid side by side, and joints are glued with metallized tape. Roll materials due to small thickness are rarely used, only if the use of a thicker insulation is impossible due to the small height of the room. On top of the heater lay a layer of polyethylene film with a thickness of 200 microns - it is necessary in order to create better conditions for the drying of the concrete screed and exclude the flow of concrete.
   

   Laying hard insulation on the floor

4. Fit the reinforcement to the floor. It can be a reinforcement mesh with a cell of 10 cm, or a wire mesh of 6-8 mm, connected at the intersections with wire. The grid is laid on the plastic guides to create a gap between the reinforcement and the base.
5. Special polystyrene plates with lugs are suitable for carrying a warm water floor from heating - they are designed for laying the water circuit and do not require the installation of guides. It should be noted that when laying polystyrene with bosses, it is necessary to use metal-plastic pipes, rather than polyethylene, and reinforce the reinforcement after laying the water circuit.
   

   Polystyrene slabs for laying underfloor heating

Laying the water circuit and filling the screed

After the preparation of the floor, it is necessary to lay a water circuit out of metal-plastic pipes according to a pre-designed scheme. You can also use pipes made of embroidered polyethylene. Usually, two methods are used: "snake" and "snail".Laying the "snail" is more beneficial - the contour contains fewer angles, while the cooler pipes of the reverse loop pass next to the hot straight line, which avoids the so-called "zebra" - sections of the warm and cold floor. Pipes of the water circuit are usually laid in 15 cm increments, for the southern regions you can use a step of 30 cm. If it is necessary to make the floor on any site warmer, the laying step on it can be increased. The diameter of the pipes of the water circuit is chosen less than the diameter of the main pipes, otherwise the pressure in them will be insufficient.

1. The water circuit pipes are laid in accordance with a pre-drawn plan, starting from the distribution point. To connect the pipes leave some stock. Laying of pipes is made by a single contour, without joints, in order to avoid possible leakage. To do this it is more convenient for two of us: one puts the pipe, the second binds it to the fixture with the help of plastic clips or fixes it between the bosses.
   

   Laying of water heating pipes in a way called snail

2. After the layout, the end of the pipe is removed to the distribution point, fixing in the junction between the wall and the floor with the help of special metal sleeves.
3. Connect the heating floor contour with the help of special connecting fittings to the distribution point and fill the system with water or air. Check for damage to the pipes.
   

   Connection of the heating floor to the heating system using the

4. connection fittings. It is better to fill the screed with an air-filled system. For screed, 200 grade concrete with a fine filler grain is used. Concrete is poured onto the prepared base, exposed beacons from the boards and smoothed with the help of the rule. The height of the screed should be such that it completely covers the water circuit pipes and the fittings by 5-6 cm. A thicker screed will worsen the self-giving, and a smaller thickness can lead to pipe damage. The surface of the screed can be lightly sprinkled with cement through a sieve - this will make it more durable. The drying of the screed lasts about 3-4 weeks, only after that it is possible to mount a decorative floor covering and load it.
   

   The next step is the floor screed

The warm floor in the room is an excellent base for laying any finish: tiles, linoleum, laminate. A warm floor with a water circuit has one drawback - it has a significant height, about 10 cm. If the height of the room does not allow the floor to be heated from the heating with a concrete screed, you can make warm water floors using modular structures or electric with infrared mats.