Help please, newly laid floor not getting very warm

[JaneJ]

Be gentle with me, this is my first post!
Our newly installed ufh and cause of many many more grey hairs (long story involving having to completely remove the old floor and replace)was finally installed and tiled over about a month ago. We used 10mm insulation boards under it and got an electrician to wire it in. All resistance values checked etc at every step of the way. Left it over 3 weeks to dry out etc and when we switched it on, it painfully slowly raised the temp to 7 deg C and no warmer. When I say painfully slowly I mean several hours, we then left it on overnight to see if it would improve but it still only got to a max of 7. Is this right? In which case it has been a complete waste of time and money and more, massive amounts of stress.
I really hope someone can advise? We have contacted the supplier who is being less than helpful.
Thanks for reading.

 

[Gazzer]

Have you got more details, what make was it ? what wattage ?

 

[Stewart]

What's the wattage if the mat.

Is that room temp or floor temp.

 

[JaneJ]

Hi, thanks for looking!
It is the floor temp, the room temp gets up to about 12 deg C. slightly higher if the radiator is on in the adjoining room.
It is a loose cable kit made by thermopads, TR3100 thermostat, ekoboard 10mm

 

[jay]

how was the probe fitted and welcome to the forum

 

[JaneJ]

Thank you
Ummm, probe fitted into floor, I remember hubby dug out a groove for it?
Forgot to say cables were 65mm apart so wattage 150 I think...am I right in thinking the wattage varies according to how close together the cables are?

 

[Stewart]

How far apart were the cables installed.
Did you put self levelling compound over cable.

 

[JaneJ]

hiya, 65mm and yes we did.

 

[Alan.P]

How big is the floor area, what size kit was installed and have you checked the thermostat settings ?

 

[jay]

is the probe under insulatiom board and do any wires cross over or run near the probe

 

[Stewart]

That's works out at a 150 watt, and should be suitable to heat the floor to 25+ degrees easily. Is the thermostat in the room that's tiled or outside in adjoining room.

 

[Gazzer]

Not really the done thing but I would be inclined to rule out the 3 items that can go wrong, the thermostat probe, the controller and the heating element itself. You can do thisby bypassing the controller and probe. this is done by connecting a plug to the power cable and feeding power direct to cable.
Please note that this should be done by a qualified electrician.

 

[Stewart]

Also.... Are there any heating pipes running near the probe under the floor.

 

[Gazzer]

Also.... Are there any heating pipes running near the probe under the floor.

Good point !

 

[JaneJ]

OK...

floor area approx 7.5m2, cable was from memory 115m, kit was for 6.9-8.8m2

How do you check the thermostat settings? I haven't programmed it, only used it on manual. If I set the room temp to 18-20 deg C the floor comes on and runs constantly but floor temp never gets above 7 deg 9well it did make 8 once briefly!)

I think the probe was grooved into the insulation boards, no wires crossing anywhere and I'm not sure how near to the probe, will have to ask hubby that one.

Thermostat is in the room that the UFH is in

Pretty sure no heating pipes as we took the floor out to bare earth and beyond so pipes would have been fairly obvious even to me!

Hubby did suggest by passing the thermostat, will get the electrician back in.

If the probe was faulty, ie reading a faulty temp surely the floor would get much warmer than it does as it continues to feed power to the cables? I know it is putting power in as my electric watch thingy goes up when it is on and down when it isn't. How would I know if the thermostat was faulty? It doesn't make any sense to me that power is going in but it isn't getting any warmer??