CH pipes beneath flooring?

[Barry123]

Hi Folks. We have just bought a 1965 bungalow and we want to give it a bit of an upgrade before we move in. Usual stuff; new kitchen, new bathroom, new CH etc. The house presently has carpets + underlay direct onto concrete floors, and from the survey I understand no insulation will be present in the concrete. A second issue is that all of the CH pipes run down the walls along side each radiator and they look real naff. My questions then.

I’d like to insulate the floor with maybe 25-30 mm of celotex TB3000 and then place an 18mm chipboard floor directly on top. Will this be warmer? That thickness is as much as the then reduced height doors will allow, we think. Can I board direct onto the celotex?

If the above goes ahead I would also like to complicate things more by putting 10 mm copper CH pipes below the chipboard in grooves within the celotex. Is this sensible? It would be easy to arrange for no joints to be below the boards.

I also wonder about 12mm tongue and grooved laminate (or maybe solid) flooring direct onto the celotex. It would allow thicker insulation. Would that work?

[Jon Tiffany]

Central heating pipes are often laid directly into solid floors, normally they are wrapped with insulation, but if they are going into channels in the celotex then no need I guess. I'm not so sure about your plan of adding insulation to the floor - 30mm of celotex and 18mm chipboard - surely that will cause some issues with the floor heights? You are correct in that the current floor most likely has no insulation.

How about laying some multifoil insulation down? Much thinnner, but might work out a bit expensive.