An underfloor heating system works by essentially turning your floor into a radiator. Hot water is heated by a boiler, and pumped around a series of pipes that are embedded into the floor. The hot water heats the floor material, which in turn dissipates heat into the room. This is generally called ‘radiant heating’, and is generally more efficient than ‘convection heating’, where a heat emitter (such as a radiator) heats the air in a room.  It is more efficient than a wall mounted radiator, as the hot air from a radiator will tend to rise up from the radiator (convection), not evenly spreading heat throughout a room.

The hot water from the boiler is pumped to a manifold. The manifold connects to the pipes that run beneath the floor. In a zoned underfloor system, the outlet ports on the manifold will have  valve actuators fitted to them.

The valve actuators will be wired to an ‘underfloor heating wiring centre’, which receives a signal from a thermostatic controller (Genius Hub in this case). The underfloor heating wiring centre is responsible for running a circulation pump, and sending a signal to the boiler to tell it to run also.

Can’t run a cable from the manifold to the boiler? Genius Hub can control the boiler wirelessly saving the expense of running a cable.