So, time is to learn how to use floor heating in my new apartment.
what should I google or where could I find information what to do and how to make it work how I want it? I think I want it different then the previous owner…
or is the best solution paying 200CHF so that someone from outside comes and explains it to me?
It’s easy. Don’t touch it!
But:
The flow rate of the warm water in the pipes determines how warm the room that the pipes go to is. More water (higher flow rate) gives a warmer room.
You have six sets of pipes.
There are thermostatic valves (the white things) attached to three pipe circuits.
These are linked to room wall thermostats and allow you to control the flow rate.
Any changes will take a couple of hours or more to have any affect so generally you set these once and leave them alone.
You can (but really shouldn’t) adjust the flow rate at the place in your photo.
Turning the black ring for a circuit will increase, or decrease the flow rate and this can be seen as the red indicator rises, or falls.
You don’t normally need to change these.
Keep the photo as a reference as how it should be incase you decide to play.
The Bathroom, the kitchen and the room with the valve on the right (I can’t read it) do not have a thermostatic valve and you generally do not adjust these as these rooms require a certain amount of heat to stop mould etc.
If, for example, the kitchen is too warm, then you can turn the black ring which will decrease the flow rate for that circuit and, in time, the kitchen will get colder.
If you want the living room warmer, or cooler, you should do that via the room wall thermostat.
Hope that’s clear.
5 Likes
Check the batteries in your thermostats! I repace ours every year.
You’re in for a project.
As been said, this system is very “träge”, slow. so you should take your time with it. Change it in small steps and best wait until the next day to see how you feel about the result. If you do it like that, it will be done once and for all so it’s worth the time.
If you get a heating contractor in (they told you that’s Fr. 200.00?) he will either tell you it’s perfect as it is or change it and you won’t like it still … as this is a totally personal thing. So adapt it in the evening, come back from work the next evening and see how it feels. That’s how I did it and haven’t touched it in years.
Batteries in thermostats? Never seen that. Is that an other update-to-worse which they’re into so much ?!
1 Like
I’m going to disagree here.
Get a room thermometer and set it to that. Do it objectively.
The human body is rubbish at working out what the temperature is as it’s always relative to another temperature.
If you walk from a cold room to a warm room, the warm room may feel really nice as you enter it - but may still be too cold for you if you sit in it for a few hours.
I
2 Likes
When we upgraded to a geothermal heat pump one of the conditions (for the subsidy) was we add thermostats. These are not hard wired into the mains, but work off batteries.
YMMV.
I adjust mine during the winter- generally the attic flat is too hot for me, but one is advised not to close them down totally. If you are in a place where there is a cooling effect in summer it is good to have them wide open then.
thanks Tom1234 for explaining.
I have one more question. what are the white big things (thermostatic valves) used for if all should be regulated using the black rings?
for me it looks like the living room and bedroom are too warm and batchroom too cold. this is what I would like to change.
Don’t the volume numbers in the bottom row provide that info? Provided they are current and the settings haven’t already been fiddled with.
That would also mean that any changes shold be marked there.
The valves are linked to the room thermostats. You shouldn’t need to touch the black rings for these circuits.
You adjust the temperature using the room thermostats.
Don’t the living room and bedroom have wall mounted thermostats? You should adjust these to change the temperature in those rooms.
For the bathroom, you can increase the flow rate by turning the black ring. Any changes will take some time to notice.
1 Like
They were put there at the installation date. The figures may not match the actual flow rates (as you wrote).
Don’t the living room and bedroom have wall mounted thermostats? You should adjust these to change the temperature in those rooms.
For the bathroom, you can increase the flow rate by turning the black ring. Any changes will take some time to notice.
you are correct for livingroom and bedroom. I put it at 20°C and it is too hot. bof bathroom I will then try increasing the flow rate. thanks!
20°C too hot, lucky you. I feel cold at that temperature 
Those temperature indications on the thermostats are often not very precise. Mine are 30 years old, I put them on 18 and still end up with 24°C room temperature. So go with the feeling (or buy a cheap thermometer) not with the numbers.
And it’s always better to fiddle with the thermostats first.
Zero accuracy with our thermostats. I treat them as on/off switches.
We have thermostats in all our rooms including the bathroom. The managing agents had all the flats in the building checked last winter.
in winter I only need to have mines on for an hour in the evening, it’s marvellous. Then I have to back to my inefficient radiators in Scotland every few months 
That’s true but over the years one gets to know them. Just don’t expect the numbers on them to have anything to do with things like temperature or anything we might expect.
How do you mean?? You’re sure you have floor heating?
Yes, we have geothermal underfloor heating. The building has a heat pump, it was a new build when we moved in back in 2018. I’ve had the heating on the last 2 evenings as the temperature in Basel has dropped and my OH has got a cold. Our apartment is so well insulated we only need the heating on in winter for about an hour in the evening then we turn it off. It’s rarely on in the bedroom and we sleep with a window open. We also have an air circulation system we can turn on the control is inside our front door. I don’t have the radiator on in my bedroom back in Scotland either, I can’t sleep in a room that’s too hot.
People from the east coast of Scotland are made from stern stuff 
That’s unusual for floor heating. Sounds good (saves money).
Radiators are a different thing.
Yes, I remember freezing a lot in England. Scots are probably even worse. 
We never have the heating on in the bedrooms. Windows wide open in winter too.
I’m not from Scotland !
You get acclimatised to colder (or indeed warmer) conditions in a few days anyway.
@zuzi666 can you post a picture of your wall thermostats? We just got new ones installed by our landlord last winter, and they actually work. The old ones, we never thought they did anything. The temperature in the room never matched what our thermometer in the room said. It was always far too warm. Maybe you need new wall thermostats?