Water heated floor: main errors and shortcomings during installation. Typical mistakes when installing heated floors Determining the area of ​​the room

It often happens that after working properly for one or two seasons, an electric heated floor suddenly stops heating. If it served as additional heating for you, then you can still wait a bit.

Call a specialist, wait repair work. But when this is the only and main source of heating in the house, is it possible to find the cause of the breakdown with your own hands and fix it yourself?

In most cases it is possible, but much depends on the location of the damage and the cause. Here are the main three:

Installation errors

If your heated floor still heats, but poorly, it turns off too often without reaching the desired temperature, the problem may initially lie in the incorrect location of the temperature sensor.

It turns out that even at the installation stage, you placed it too close to the heating cable. Or it moved during installation flooring.

When the sensor is placed in the corrugation according to the instructions, you can try to solve the problem by pushing or pulling it out of the corrugated tube by 5 cm.

If such problems with insufficient heating appeared quite recently, remember where this indicator is located. It is quite possible that someone moved and placed some furniture or placed a rug on it.

Because of this, the sensor began to warm up the floor in this place faster and, accordingly, turned off earlier than usual.

Still weak heating may be caused by low voltage in the network in your apartment. Take measurements with a voltmeter.

Failure of the thermostat

When the electric heated floor does not turn on at all, troubleshooting should begin with the thermostat. To begin, pull it out of its seat so that all terminals are visible.

If you have electronic type, when dismantling it, never press on the screen with your fingers, otherwise it may crack.

First of all, check with a multimeter to see if the thermostat is getting 220V at all? Maybe it's not the floor, but all the problems are in the power cable.

Use a multimeter or voltmeter, and not a simple indicator that simply shows the presence of a phase. The phase may come, but there will be no zero - hence the inability of the entire system.

On most thermostats, manufacturers sign and mark all terminals:

To do this, just disassemble the regulator and then you will see that zero is fed directly through the track to the heating cable. The phase is broken through the relay. For example, this is exactly what is done in the RTC 70.26 model.

That is, if you confuse the “polarity”, then the phase will always be on duty on your heated floor. Even when the built-in switch is turned off! Be careful.

Of course, there may be another terminal designation:

If there is voltage at the power terminals and it is normal, then be sure to double-check the reliability of the contacts in the remaining terminals.

It happens that over time the contact weakens and the thin wire simply falls out and stops making contact. Eventually software warm floor displays this as an error - “Accident. Broken floor heating sensor.”

It seems that they touched the thermostat or turned on and off the general machine and everything worked. You start looking for a problem somewhere deep, but it is on the surface - poor contact in the terminal block.

Damage and checking the temperature sensor

When there are no problems with the contacts, you need to check the functionality of the regulator itself and the sensor. How to do this without breaking the floor?

To do this, connect to the terminals where the underfloor heating cable is connected. an ordinary light bulb with a cartridge. Apply voltage and begin to unscrew the regulator to change the temperature.

When the device is working properly and a certain temperature (room or lower) is reached, a click will occur and the light will light up.

Then take a regular hairdryer and begin to warm up the area of ​​the floor where the temperature sensor is installed.

If it is really working, then after a couple of minutes (depending on the thickness of the screed), the sensor should work and the light will turn off. This means that the reason is most likely damage to the heating cable itself and the control equipment has nothing to do with it.

But sometimes the devices themselves are damaged. If, when you turn on the heated floors, the indicator starts to blink and goes out, after which the cable naturally does not heat, then perhaps the capacitor in your circuit has “dried up”.

This often happens during long-term use of heated floors for 5 years or more. When the green LED blinks, this may indicate a sensor break.

The opposite situation also occurs. The floor warms up, but the thermostat does not turn off. That is, the red indicator is constantly on. How to check what is wrong?

Disconnect the thermistor wires from the terminals and use a multimeter to measure its resistance, comparing it with the passport data. Moreover, the characteristics of different manufacturers may differ significantly. Starting from 6 kOhm and ending with 100 kOhm and more.

If the resistance is very high or infinite, then the sensor is faulty. The thermostat thinks that the floor is cold and accordingly heats it to the maximum. The same thing happens when the wires leading to the sensor break.

Many people are also afraid that if they increase the length of the wires to the thermostat, the total resistance will sharply change and the device will not work correctly.

Think for yourself - the resistance of such thermistors is several kOhms. And you, by increasing a couple of extra meters, will add only a few ohms. The error when setting the temperature will remain virtually unchanged.

Defence from short circuit

There are usually no fuses installed in thermostats, so don’t look for them inside. In fact, the function of a fuse in electric underfloor heating systems must be performed by circuit breaker+ An RCD or differential automatic device is in your panel.

Some models of regulators (for example RTC 70) have a built-in switch. They can be used to manually turn off the heated floors without running to the electrical panel.

Many people mistakenly think that it is through it that all the current passes to the heating cable. This is wrong. This switch is only responsible for supplying power to the board, hence its low operating current - 6A.

Setting up a heated floor with a faulty sensor

Electronic models, unlike mechanical ones, should themselves help users identify faults. For example, if a temperature sensor breaks down, non-typical values ​​or error E5 will be displayed on the screen.

• disconnect the wires to the sensor from the terminals

• Set the thermostat to timer mode

Some models do this automatically, while in other types you need to press the up and down buttons at the same time.

• The program number is displayed on the screen

In mechanical brands, for example DeviReg 130, this method is also applicable. Pull out the wires from the sensor and unscrew the adjustment wheel between positions 3-4.

In this mode it will be possible to achieve optimal comfortable temperature warm floors. True, you will always have them turned on.

And if there is no obvious break, and the multimeter even shows some values, how can you find out that the thermistor is faulty? It is necessary to compare its passport data with those that are actually determined during measurements.

For example, the factory thermostat data is 15 kOhm at t=25C.

And here’s what the tester shows when taking measurements:

Here, of course, you need to take into account the temperature coefficient. If it is negative, then as t increases from 25C, the resistance will fall. At lower temperatures, resistance increases.

That is, it will be higher than 15 kOhm. Here is the result of measuring the same serviceable sensor at t already 20C:

With high-quality thermostats, temperature sensors and other components from leading companies, as well as current prices at heated floors today, you can check it out.

Damage to the heating cable and heating mat

If you have checked the sensor, thermostat, all contacts and there are no comments on their operation, and the floor still does not heat, then all that remains is to look for damage in the heating cable itself.

An obvious short circuit can be diagnosed with a simple multimeter. But to establish its exact location, unfortunately, you cannot do without special expensive devices.

At the beginning of the diagnosis, use a tester to check the resistance between the cable cores. It should be within the factory specifications - from 11 to 700 Ohms, depending on the length.

Therefore, always keep the passport documentation for heated floors. Paste nameplates from cable products there, write down the readings of the initial insulation resistance and core resistance.

Then, if problems arise, it will be easy to determine what kind of cable is laid, its length, and factory resistance. It also doesn’t hurt to take a photo or sketch of the laying areas.

If there is no short circuit between the cores, then the problem is poor insulation, we move on. Check the resistance, again with a tester, between the core and the screen.

Here the readings should tend to infinity - or a unit is displayed on the left side on the current clamp screen. With zero readings, everything is clear - the core somewhere is clearly shorted to the screen.

But if the multimeter shows a resistance of several hundred Ohms or even kOhms, then connect a 2500V megohmmeter and apply increased voltage between the braid and the heating core.

And if at the same time your insulation resistance drops to zero, then this means that the cable is broken and you need to look for the place of damage.

Moreover, at a lower voltage of 500V or 1000V, this may not be recognized.

For new heating cables from quality manufacturers(Devi, Veria, etc.) the resistance must be at least 1 GOhm at a voltage of 2.5 kV.

For example, manufacturers test heating mats at the factory with a voltage of 3 kV and immersion in water.

Cable burning and signal generator

To find the exact location of the fault, you need to have specialized devices, which include:

If at the stage of testing with a multimeter it was shown that two wires are shorted together, then there is no need to burn anything here. Immediately connect the generator to them and look for the point.

Broken heating cable core

Well, another common situation is a wire break. This is one of the most unpleasant accidents. It is impossible to burn the cable, there is no short circuit and even a thermal imager is useless here.

Most often, such damage occurs in couplings - initial, connecting or end.

The heating veins there are very thin, and often it is in this place that for some reason they manage to make a turn in the route.

If there is an obvious break, both the multimeter and the megohmmeter will show resistance between the cores close to infinity. But if some unstable contact still remains, then the tester can show quite good data, for example 200-300 Ohms.

But when switched on at 220V, there will be no full heating, and the operating current will be a maximum of several milliamps, instead of the required load of several Amperes.

As a result, the cable will barely warm up, and of course there can be no talk of any normal heating.

Often even burning is useless here. And all that remains is to disassemble the most suspicious places, first of all those tiles under which the couplings are installed.

Theoretically, you can try using methods to search for wiring under the plaster.

In splices, the cable will not be completely shielded. And by applying voltage to the core, you can try to detect the signal where the phase disappears, i.e. right at the break point. But a lot will depend on the depth and specifics of the damage.

Greetings to everyone who is reading this article! It is dedicated to errors in the installation of a very popular low-temperature heating system at the moment - water heated floors (abbreviated as WTP). If someone doesn’t understand, warm floors are called low temperature system due to the fact that the coolant in them should have a temperature of no more than 50° Celsius. In this case, the temperature of the floor itself should not exceed 26° in residential areas and 31° Celsius near paths and pool edges. I recommend reading the article about that. Let's get down to business and start looking at installation errors.

Improper preparation of the surface for laying heated floors.

Often when self-installation VTP people forget that they need to level the base to the floor. Let me explain what this threatens - if different sections of the heated floor contour lie at different vertical levels, then there is a high probability of air locks forming. Because of air lock the coolant will stop circulating through the circuit, which means it will not heat. To avoid this, you need to level and thoroughly clean the surface of debris. For clarity, I suggest you watch the following video:

Improper installation of damper tape.

Let me remind you that the damper tape is needed in order to compensate for the thermal expansion of concrete that occurs due to an increase in its temperature. Often people forget to attach it to the walls or choose the wrong tape width. The damper tape should be 2-3 cm higher than the level of the final screed. The tape is attached to the wall using dowel nails if it does not have an adhesive side. The entire length of the tape should be evenly adjacent to the wall. Let's watch the following video:

The video shows the installation of self-adhesive tape, so the installer does not use dowel nails. But in the next video they will be:

Incorrect installation of underfloor heating pipes.

Laying HTP pipes is not an easy task for an inexperienced “do-it-yourselfer” who decided to save on installation and do everything himself. Here it all starts with laying thermal insulation on rough screed. Expanded polystyrene of different thicknesses or foil-foamed polyethylene are used as thermal insulation. The latter is used where it is not possible to lay thick insulation. It is worth saying that the alkaline environment of the screed quickly corrodes the foil, so it will not be of much use. Although at the moment there are samples of such insulation, where the foil is covered on top with a layer of polyethylene, which should protect the aluminum from the action of alkali.

The insulation must be laid tightly without any gaps.

Now let's move directly to the problems of laying HTP pipes. I will list them in the form of a list:

• Lack of a preliminary plan - when installing an HTP, having a preliminary plan is very helpful. The plan marks the entry and exit points of the pipes, the laying pitch, the distance from the walls and other things.
• Failure to comply with the laying step - many people save on the pipe and make the laying step larger than 30 cm. In this case, a “zebra” appears. This means that the floor will be either cold or warm. The laying step is in the range from 10 to 30 cm.
• The heating contours are too long - for a water heated floor made with a pipe 16 mm in diameter, the length limit will be 100 meters, and for the 20th pipe, the loop length will be 120 meters. If you make the loop longer, then the coolant most likely will not circulate through it.

I suggest you watch this video:

After installation, it is necessary to pressurize the pipes with water. Pressure testing is done with a pressure of at least 3 atmospheres. The screed is also poured onto the pipe under pressure. This is necessary so that the solution does not flatten the pipe with its weight. Since we're talking about screeding, let's look at this process carefully.

Pouring heated floor screed.

There comes a moment when it is no longer possible to retreat further - this is the moment of pouring the screed. By this time, the entire pipe should be laid, secured and under pressure (the water in the pipe should be at room temperature). Speaking of connection! I recommend that you read the article on.

The main mistake that can be made when pouring is the incorrect thickness of the screed. It cannot be made thinner than 3 cm and thicker than 10 cm. In addition, there are requirements for the composition of the mixture - it must be no lower than grade 400. Of course, this requirement is not always met, but you need to know about it. There’s not much more to say here, I suggest you see how it’s done:

Conclusion.

Water heated floor - complicated engineering system. You can save money here, but it will almost certainly be at the expense of the quality of either the materials or the work performed. It is worth carefully selecting people for such work; it is advisable that they have some kind of “portfolio” where you can see their success in this matter. If you are interested, read the article about that. You also need to save carefully on materials. What you pour into concrete should be good quality so that you don’t have to open it all up later. With this we will say goodbye to you for now, I look forward to your questions in the comments!

A heated floor screed is an expensive massive structure that cannot be disassembled and repaired, or anything in it can be changed or adjusted. It can only be broken and then thrown away, in any case, at least a piece of screed limited by thermal seams and with one water circuit. Therefore, it is important to avoid mistakes when creating heated floors.

Why the boiler does not turn off - there is no floor insulation, or it is insufficient

It may happen that when the heated floor is turned on, the boiler will work 2 times longer, fuel consumption will increase 2 times... And all because the heated screed will heat the foundation, external walls, and the space near the house. How does this work?

For example, along the edges of the base on which the screed was erected, there was a foundation elevation. And insulation was not installed in this place. This turned out to be sufficient for the situation described. Another typical case is “it’s too expensive to put 12 cm of extruded polystyrene foam,” so they put 5 cm. As a result of the heated floor (which in itself is an expensive and almost unprofitable structure), no energy is spent on heating the street.

They put a lot of pipes in - but nothing works

A warm floor consists of many pipeline circuits. Each is located in a separate piece of screed, limited expansion joints. It is recommended to use a special metal-plastic pipe with an outer diameter of 16 mm (which is sufficient in any case), with a circuit length of 50 - 80 meters. Maximum 100 meters.

It is important to make the length of the circuits approximately the same, so that because of one long circuit you do not have to increase the resistance with taps in all the others, and thus overload the pump, and make the operation of the heated floor impossible.

Temperature zebra on the floor

It is recommended not to exceed a pipe laying pitch of 20 cm, otherwise warm/cold areas will appear on the floor even with normal screed thickness. The usual laying step is 15 cm, while in a square meter of floor there will be about 6.7 meters of pipe. As a rule, near external walls, you need to create a more heated zone up to 0.5 meters wide with a laying step of 10 cm.

The screed may crack

The screed experiences significant thermal expansion. It must be both strong and pliable at the same time so as not to crack or tear the pipes. Must be done:

• Thickness cement-sand screed(concrete B20) at least 8 cm.
• Maximum linear dimension one piece with a contour - no more than 4 meters.
• Adding plasticizer and fiber fiber according to the instructions is mandatory.
• General reinforcement of a piece of screed with a 15x15 cm mesh made of 4 mm wire, installed 2 cm from the bottom plane, is mandatory.

What leads to ruptures and cracks in screeds and pipes

• There are no expansion joints between the walls and adjacent pieces of screed.
• There is no thermal insulation of pipes in the screed in places where they accumulate.
• There is no thermal insulation of the pipes laid in the screed grooves to the radiators.
• There is no insulation of pipes up to 0.5 meters at the inlets/outlets of the screed.

The floor covering is not specifically selected for heated floors, so it emits poison, swells and cracks, and insulates the screed, which can overheat and collapse.

Errors in hydraulics and more

• It is recommended not to connect more than 8 circuits to one collector; then a 25(15)-40 pump will handle it. If there are more circuits, then it is better to install another collector rather than increase the pump power.
• There is no coolant mixing unit, the heated floor is connected “somehow” through valves - overheating. But with circuit lengths up to 40 meters, they can be connected via RTL boxes.
• There are no air vents on the manifolds. If air is not removed from the system, the floors will “stop”.
• The pipes are connected to the collector chaotically - “two ends to the return”, pairs cannot be separated. Chaos on the collector will not make it possible to make adjustments and switch on.
• We must not allow kinks, compression, joints and other damage to pipes, which almost always happen during construction work.

Failure to conduct hydraulic tests before laying the screed is a critical mistake that threatens tens of thousands of losses.

It won't work without radiators

Many people would like to save money and limit themselves to only heated floors. But a warm floor can cope with heating a building, without its uncomfortable and dangerous overheating above +27 degrees of surface, only in the southernmost regions, where snow is rare.

In addition, the heater concrete screed too inertial system. It will not keep up with daily temperature fluctuations, which can be significant, or cooling due to open doors…. The result will be discomfort.

In addition, many often want to have a pleasant, slightly cool floor under their feet, and certainly not a hot bed, in the literal sense of the word, on which it will be impossible to stand. Therefore, you need to install at least half the radiator power from the nominal value to ensure comfortable heating.

Why you don’t need to do your own heat loss calculations for installing heated floors

At the everyday level, it is impossible to say what the real air exchange in the rooms will be and what it will be like in frosty temperatures of -20 degrees C. At the same time, we must not forget that ventilation usually carries away 30–40% of the generated energy, and if drafts are created, then all 90%.

It is also impossible to determine the influx of energy from the sun, reflection/absorption/emission of radiant energy (20%), shading, wind blowing, humidity of structures, and even the structures themselves, including the state of insulation and its humidity, cracks, airflow - all this For owners it is a mystery.

But choosing the number of radiator sections and heated floor structures is an even more crude action. If you use “general estimates” of heat loss for the household level, and the experience of positive construction, and also avoid the mistakes given above, then the heated floor will definitely be made operational and, together with radiators, will definitely create comfortable conditions in the house.

The heated floor system is quite popular today. Using a heating cable, thermomats, infrared film or pipes, you can heat the floor covering. In fact, installing heating elements with your own hands is not too difficult, but many inexperienced craftsmen make simple mistakes, due to which the entire system can fail some time after installation. Below we will look at the main mistakes when installing water and electric heated floors.

1. The calculation of materials was carried out incorrectly. When calculating the length of the heating cable or the size of the mats, you need to use the usable area of ​​the room, and not the total. Under usable area This means a space that will not be filled with furniture, appliances and other objects. If you install heating elements under large objects, the system will overheat in these places, causing 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 there are more conductors than needed, try to lay them a little closer together, without violating the manufacturer's requirements. We draw your attention to the fact that it does not have such a drawback, so when installing it you are unlikely to make this mistake.
3. Watch the laying step, as well as the distances from walls and other objects. Remember that the conductor loops should not intersect each other, otherwise overheating may occur.
4. Please note the minimum bend radius specified in technical specifications. As a rule, it ranges from 5 to 10 cable diameters.
5. Heating elements should only be placed on clean surface. During installation, make sure that the heated floor does not lie on construction debris, otherwise, after pouring the screed, it will quickly fail under mechanical loads. It is even recommended to remove all dust before installation work.
6. An elementary mistake that inexperienced specialists also make is ignoring recommendations for testing the system after installation. Before pouring screed or laying parquet (on infrared film), be sure to measure the system resistance and check this value with the nominal value indicated in the passport. Perhaps you made a connection error and the system no longer works. Then repairing the heated floor will be much more difficult. We talked about this in detail in a separate article.
7. You can turn on the heated floor only after the screed has hardened. If you decide to check whether the floor is hot before the solution has dried, this could damage the system. It is strictly forbidden to connect the cable in the bay.
8. The temperature sensor must be placed in a corrugation so that it can be easily removed at any time (for repair or replacement). The end of the corrugation must be sealed so that the solution does not get on the sensor.
9. The sensor itself must be placed in the middle between two turns of the cable so that it shows the temperature as accurately as possible. Too much distance from the cable will cause the system to operate 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 underfloor heating circuit and its own thermostat. A serious mistake is 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 may damage the conductors and insulation. Try to avoid the coils of the heating element.
12. Before pouring the screed, take a photo of the layout of all the elements so that during repairs you can know where everything is.
13. Under no circumstances should you help the solution harden quickly by turning on the system. Those who advise turning on the heating immediately after installation will sooner or later be faced with a situation where the system quickly fails.
14. Before starting work, be sure to read the instructions, in which the manufacturer may recommend important points. Our main mistake is that we do it first and then read the instructions. So it's better the other way around.
15. Remember, infrared heated floors should be laid under parquet, laminate and linoleum, and thermomats and heating cables should be laid under tiles. If you lay a film floor in the bathroom and pour tile adhesive on it, the system will not work. These seem to be obvious facts, but sometimes they manage to do this.

The bathroom in the apartment is small room with high humidity, usually without heating (not counting heated towel rails). Therefore, a tiled floor is most often laid here, which is best heated using.

A heated floor in a bathroom or shower stall should be safe, reliable and durable. By creating such heating system, it is important to avoid mistakes during installation.

Basic rules for installing heated floors in the bathroom

1. You cannot combine one heated floor for two rooms.

You should not combine a heated floor system, for example, a bathroom and a corridor. For effective and economical heating, each room must have its own, connected to an individual thermostat. If, say, you extend the cable from the hallway to the bathroom and use only one thermostat, then you will not be able to achieve accurate temperature control and your heated floor will disappoint you.

2. Do not neglect the installation scheme.

Before you begin installing a heated floor in the bathroom under the tiles, you need to draw a diagram. And keep it even after the work is completed.

This way you will always know where the heat sensor and heating elements are located. And if you replace the sensor, you won’t have to chip off the entire tile. And during the installation of plumbing, you will not damage the cable.

3. Not cable mode.

The heating cable is sold in ready-made sections and cannot be added or cut. If this is ignored, the operation of the system will be unsafe, or even inoperable.

When laying cable flooring in the bathroom, be sure to choose a kit that matches your specific area.

4. Construction debris can be harmful.

To avoid damaging the cable while still laying out, start by cleaning it up. It is recommended that the subfloor be thoroughly cleaned of debris, vacuumed and primed.

And yet, you should not walk on a heater that is not hidden in the screed, this can damage it and then you will have to buy a new one.

5. Incorrect thermal insulation.

Another point that cannot be neglected. To prevent heat from escaping to your neighbors, retain it by first placing extruded polystyrene foam or another type of rigid structure insulation on the subfloor.

And, since this is a bathroom, remember - the insulation must be moisture resistant. Cork material will not work.

6. Failure to comply with floor laying rules.

• The cable or film should not overlap. If they intersect, they will damage the system.
• Warm floor in the bathroom under the bathtub, toilet, washing machine, we do not lay a shower stall with a tray. If the cable gets under stationary furniture, heat is trapped, which reduces the operating life of the system.
• Be sure to make a retreat from the wall of 5 - 10 cm.

7. We ring the cable before pouring the screed.

To avoid any unpleasant surprises after pouring the screed and laying the tiles, check the functionality of the system at different stages of work.

After the heater has been deployed, check the system resistance (call) and compare it with the figures specified by the manufacturer. But under no circumstances turn on the heated cable floor without a screed!

Also check the resistance after completing installation work.

8. Temperature sensor – not hidden in concrete.

We must place the temperature sensor in a corrugated tube with a plug; this makes it easier to replace if it fails over time.

9. Air voids should not be allowed in the screed.

Under no circumstances should a working cable come into contact with air. This will incapacitate him. Therefore, when making a screed, control the distribution of the solution so that it envelops the cable on all sides. Contact of the heater with air can lead to a 100% replacement of the heated floor in the bathroom or shower stall.

10. Wait for the screed to dry completely.

If you want your heated floor under the tiles in the bathroom to work long years, do not turn on the system until the screed or tile adhesive is completely dry. Be patient and wait 28-30 days until everything dries on its own.

By speeding up the drying process, you risk getting a low-quality screed with cracks and air voids, which will lead to damage to the heated floor.