Electric underfloor heating

[ThomasB]

Hi,

I would like to have electric UFH in the bathroom. Which Loxone output should I connect to the mesh? Also how do you control the temperature ? I was initially thinking of having it programmed into Loxone only but then thought it could be convenient to have a switch in the room?

Can anyone share some experience on this?

Many thanks in advance!

Thomas

[TomM]

Thomas,

Whilst there's no right or wrong way to do this, our setup uses a DMX dimmer to turn the floor on/off (or any interval in between).  You could also use a relay (digital output) on the miniserver if you have one spare.

Re temperature, the reason to use a temperature probe is to ensure the floor never exceeds a given temperature.  I didn't put one in our floor but have instead setup time limits to how long the floor could ever be on and a delay in between heating periods.  This is probably not ideal so you could install a 0-10V temperature probe and connect that to a miniserver analogue input or alternatively use a 1-wire prob if you have a 1-wire network already.

If you integrate in this manner you will be able to control the floor heating completely from the loxone.  Meaning that any loxone connected keypad in the bathroom (or anywhere else) could control the floor.  In my experience we have the floors controlled on a timer for start and end of the days which is the periods where this is most likely required.  We have never wanted to manually control the floor whatsoever so I do not have it controllable by any of the keypads, although you can control it using the app.

Tom

[JohnLB]

Hi TomM,

I was just wondering which underfloor electric heating system (brand) you had connected to the DMX dimmer for Loxone complete control of the heating? Would be great if you could provide more info,

Thanks 

[TomM]

Hi John,

We have 2 different versions: one for tiled floors and one for wooden floors.

Tiles = very standard heat cable bought off eBay (from a UK supplier but I inspected it well before laying).  You'll find that laying the cable on its own is much easier to lay as opposed to the mats which I found are difficult to equally space and you always end up with too much or too little at the end and then have to butcher the mat quite alot to get right.  Remember that with Loxone monitoring the room temperature and controlling the power to the cable, you just need the cable, no need for a thermostat at all.  For example, http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Underfloor-Heating-Cable-Kit-with-Thermostat-Option-For-Under-Tile-Floor-Heating-/230873913623 - this was literally the first result that came up, so feel free to shop around.

Wooden floor = special heating mat for wooden floors (again from ebay).  this is a foil mat with very thin cable running through it (unlike the tile cable which is 5-6mm). http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Electric-Foil-Underfloor-Heating-Mat-Kit-for-Under-Wood-and-Laminate-ALL-SIZES-/191320459894 - first result again, shop around!

All works just fine, if you're going to use this for the main heating of a room I would definitely put a temperature sensor probe in (either 1-10V or 1-wire) to ensure the floor doesn't exceed a certain termperature, but as noted previously, we only use it keep the floor from being too cold in the bathrooms and therefore I didn't install probes and just have it on a maximum time ensuring the temperature never has an opportunity to reach very much.