Is heating in the basement sensible or necessary?

Hello everyone,

We are currently planning our house (timber frame construction KfW 50 or KfW 40) and I am considering whether I should still plan a heating system in the basement.

Here is our basement plan and the wall structure.



The perimeter insulation is 14 cm thick in our case. The floor slab is of quality C 25/30 and has a thickness of 20 cm. The exterior walls consist of two-shell precast concrete elements (quality C 25/30) with the corresponding reinforcement.

At the moment, two heat sources are under discussion:

Option 1: District heating + underfloor heating ground floor/upper floor
Option 2: Air-water heat pump + underfloor heating ground floor/upper floor

I would like to use room K.03 (Basement 2) as an office when I work from home.

Is it sensible to install underfloor heating in the basement as well, or are there alternatives for the above-mentioned heat sources? Is it advisable to extend the controlled residential ventilation to the basement as well?

Thank you very much for your feedback and answers!

Best regards
Björn

Hello,
Controlled residential ventilation in the basement, an absolute yes. Especially if you want to do without heating.
If controlled residential ventilation is planned anyway, the additional costs are not that much. Controlled residential ventilation in the basement also allows you to do without windows in pure storage rooms or the utility room. Saves money again.
Heating is a question I also thought about for a long time. With 14 cm insulation in the basement, the ventilation should almost be sufficient. And for the home office, you can always still screw an electric heater to the wall (which of course massively worsens your ecological balance, but you can just leave that out of the KFW calculation). Financially, that should be cheaper. Underfloor heating in the basement is also nice though, especially as an office space.
In the end, we decided to invest the money in underfloor heating.

Best regards,

Andreas

If the heating system is already in the basement, it is not a big effort. In the hallway and in the office/guest room, we also have underfloor heating, but not in the utility room and storage room. The technology heats the whole area a bit anyway, and the storage room is supposed to be a bit cooler anyway. However, the heating circuit distributor is also located there, so it does not get completely cold.

We have two large rooms in the basement, the HAR and the hallway.

Usage
I would like to use room K.03 as an office/hobby room.
In room K.02, I want to set up a workshop and store supplies.

Is it sensible to install heating/controlled residential ventilation in all rooms or only in room K.03?

Thanks for your tips!

Where supplies are stored, I would not install heating. Depending on which supplies are to be stored there, it is better if they are kept as cool as possible. By the way, a freezer chest is also well suited in a cool basement.

We have installed controlled residential ventilation in all 5 basement rooms and, in return, saved on the small windows because I find the light wells/grates extremely bothersome and the solution does not provide enough light to the basement rooms anyway. Underfloor heating is installed in 3 rooms: guest room, bathroom, hobby room. The house connection room and storage room remain without underfloor heating. In the storage room, there are additionally 2 completely separately fused sockets intended for an extra refrigerator and freezer.